Hola BOAC -
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I agree with you that the Habsheim accident was probably due to the factor of spool-up time, and combined with other factors, such as a lower altitude than planned. Apparently, the pilot was not even familiar with the airfield environment, but I still believe that the concept of the A-320 technology may be a difficult transition for the flight crews of my generation.
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When I started as airline pilot, numerous captains were ex DC-6/7 pilots, some who had a difficult time to adapt to the 727 jet transports. I remember a notorious accident (UAL 727, Salt Lake City, mid-1960s) that was often cited as example in classroom discussions, about the factors when transitioning pilots from one generation of aircraft to the next. The spool-up time of a R-2800 or R-3350 was different than a JT3D or JT8D...
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I found myself in the same situation a few years ago when the first airplanes appeared with "glass cockpits" and FMS equipment, and I refused to transition to such airplanes. Same with a reduction of flight crews from 3 cockpit crewmembers down to the 2 pilots as we often have nowadays.
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A few years ago, our 747 pilot group (and myself) fought a war with our management to select 747-300s rather than more expensive 747-400s... The issue was supression of the flight engineers, and the extra range offered by the 400 series (very little range increase, which was not even warranted for our sectors). The price of the 300s was approximately $10-12 million per unit, instead of $30-35 million for the 400s... Passenger capacity was same for both aircraft types. The major issue was then the flight engineers. The company politics at the time was worsened by the economic situation in Argentina in 2001-2002, and averting the bankruptcy of the airline... The proponents of the 747-400s won the battle... They acquired 4 747-400s from Canada, and spent a fortune in crew training, while no training would have been required if they had acquired the 747-300s...
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What made us smile, however, our unions demanded that flight engineers be trained to be "cruise first officers", and that all first officers be qualified as "cruise captains" with P-1 type rating...
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At the end... our 747-400 sectors are long, all requiring a crew of three pilots, but now, that crew of 3 pilots have a higher salary, than the crew of 3 (2 pilots + F/E) in the 747-200/300s... So, our accountants selected an airplane... with higher crew costs...
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Airline managements know little about airplanes...
Happy contrails