White Night
Culture basically means that you remember what happened yesterday and why. No memory no culture.
I will give you another example:
You just landed in Casablanca and the temp is 45 °C
You are about to start your engines for the next leg.
On engines that had no FADEC you had to be careful NOT to follow SOP and NOT throw in the fuel at the SOP value of 25 % but continue the cranking until EGT dropped below 100 °C to avoid EGT over temperature.
On modern planes you have full authority FADEC that will do this for you.
When starting an engine equipped with FADEC you can either fall asleep or you can monitor to see if FADEC is doing what it should be doing. Culture will help you what to look for.
Same with rotation technique and many other things.
In short: SOP does not always cover everything nor does modern technology, basics still apply, as such culture is the same as what you guys call airmanship.
A pilot that wants everything written black on white would make a good lawyer.
A lawyer would never land on a slippery runway based on advisory data only; his brain does not work that way.
Radnav
It seems that the guys had themselves pretty well covered by the paperwork. What you forget to mention is that the EK FOM has been the cause of many problems.
Hence, 3 different directors of operation in 4 years, and serious arguments with some manufacturers and legal bodies.
You can be sure that Airbus is being very diplomatic at this time but inside the office they are not at all that pleased with the recent happenings.
Invictus
You are right; I may have been a bit to patronizing. However, EK as many other airlines that are multicultural have a common problem of different cultures and pilots coming with different SOP for the same aircraft.
The challenge is to get them all on one line. This is not achieved with dictatorial management style. The only way you get that done in a credible way is to have the manufacturers closely involved and have your SOP audited by them on a regular basis.
This is basically what the B 777 management tried to do in 1998 and almost all of them except the locals were removed because of it. Recent happenings on the A 340 proves the value of their intention and their courage at the time.