RAT 5. I did not mis the point. I was responding to a specific point V-5 made about things happening on the flight deck.
On the much wider points that you have made I have considerable sympathy. I am sure that you would agree that the aptitude testing of new entry aircrew is essential. It is not the entry standards that are the problem. It is waht happens after that. Working on the flight deck is one of the most disciplines working environments that can possibly exist. The whole purpose of the endless training and checking is to ensure absolute compliance with the approved operating procedures at all times. That is one reason why air transport has become such a safe form of transport.
But many of the aircrew that I know and have known have also felt that it is not an environment that helps their personal creativity. The more pressure is put on their rosters the more the frustration. I am sure that you will find numerous industrial psychologists that can explain this point much more clearly than I can.
Rather than engage in a theoretical debate about it what I will do is recount a story about the time some years ago when I was a manager responsible for aircrew. The company concerned was always under financial pressure. Every area of the company was under constant pressure to produce savings and efficiency improvements. It fell to me to find some large ones.
I found one that was very attractive. It would generate large savings for the company and it would settle a long standing grievance of the crews at the same time. It involved the introduction od a system of preference rostering. The preferences being declared by the crews themselves. I proposed to test it through a ninety day experimental period in wehich there would be no risks to the company or to the crews. But the rostering staff (working on paper at that time) were wholly opposed to it and created a ferocious backlash about their loss of control over their ability to determine the rosters of the crew.
I was forced to withdraw and was moved to a different job in the company. At that time the company did not get its savings and the crew remained dissatisfied.
Around 18 months later the idea was revived as a test bed for a new computerised rostering system then being evaluated. In a ninety day period all the ideas on which I had been working were fully proved and then introduced. The numbers on establishment were reduced by natural wastage and the crew satisfaction increased markedly.
What that told me is that there is always another way to the one that authoritarian crewing departments might want to use. After all their only role is to ensure that there are names to allocate to the flight.
In my many years in aviation I have learnt that the best rosters for an efficiency point of view and a staff satisfaction point of view whether air or ground crew are all based on a pattern of 5 days on followed by 3 days off. On the days on part the roster has to be similar for all 5 days. It has to be all earlies, all mid day shifts or all lates.
I strongly suspect that with the very early starts and very late finishes these days a pattern of 5 earlies, 3off, 5 mids, 3 off, 5 lates, 3 off would be both practical and popular. In aircrew terms it would certainly generate enough working hours and it would be stable.
What I strongly suspect is that the software generated in the rostering system has been created round cost alone. A few yeras ago I did some work with a very large airline in the fiels of artificial intelligence in developing rostering systems. It is hellishly complicated but what did emerge was that it is essential for the roster creators (usually lackeys on behalf of management) and the roster operators (crew) to share a common sense of purpose. Sounds difficult but it is not impossible. Crews do want to work but they do not want to be pushed around. Nor should they. Equally managements do need crews who have beileve that the company cares for them. ALL THE BEST COMPANIES IN THE WORLD CARE FOR THEIR STAFF.
I hope this helps to push the debate along.