Originally Posted by
Indarra
Suspect this is the very heart of the matter. A long time ago journalist the late Murray Sayle wrote that for their cockpit crews Japanese airlines had needed to deal with the ingrained cultural instinct in that county to work by consensus. It's common sense that any element of doubt by the GC captain should have automatically been referred to the ATC, not to his team.
I would just point out that consensus building is actually a very good cultural strength and one that is shared by many Northern European countries as well. It's better to have a system that works
with consensus-based cultures than one that tries to replace it.