Different airlines use different FLEX procedures, some airlines allow crews to choose max or intermediate or min FLEX by scrolling up the or down the FLEX temps. Some airlines only use max FLEX or TOGA.
I made this point earlier. The latter is logically not very astute, though used by EK. As I pointed out, it takes away some assessment and by that some error trapping.
EK should revert to the first option.
We can all learn from this mistake and it has happened before with some sad and some lucky outcomes. It probably will happen again.
As long the archaic blaming and bashing-harder game continues at EK, nothing will be learned and something will happen again. And it is ENTIRELY the responsibility of the company to change this, yes your highness, yours too!!!!.
But having good SOP's and sticking to them will help to avoid them...
Well, even the best SOP won't help in a environement of threat and fear for dismissal. Humans are not designed to work at their best with such mismanagement and nonleadership. This is so obvious, so proven throughout the civilised world, that it boggles our minds that EK is able to continue down this road without having the regulators, journos and the pax-associations all over them.
Cheap travel seems to just do the trick ..... everyone is so hypocritical until it's their own or their peers a$$ in the tube .....
The bottom line is... change the SOP and use both LPC's.
And what happens if one LPC is u/s? MEL will generously allow dispatch, diluting your argument. What happens if both are u/s? MEL will allow dispatch and you will get the numbers via ACARS from dispatch. Now that is really reassuring! Because they don't srew up in the obscene palace, do they. They're human as well, and your argument diluted again.
You can add ten more LPCs, a hundred more lines in the SOPs, you will not cure the underlying and most threatening problem: Management by greed and fear. This is because greed erodes the necessary selection and training of the tech crew. It determines the T&Cs and we all agree that they have been diluted to a very, very low standard. To enforce all these changes, which directly attack your wallet, living and working conditions AND your safety, they need threat and fear, otherwise no real professional would allow them to be imposed. They need some form of corruption, otherwise no regulator would sign off such BS, no postholder would fill in his signature.
We should not go down the nicely presented road of discussing if and how much the crew have screwed up, how good the trapping and SOPs are.
DON'T TAKE THAT BAIT.
We should emphasize relentlessly that we do accept that there has been a huge blunder, and the crew might face consequences. But we want to point the gun onto the surrounding and contributing factors just as much, because they are leading us to making more mistakes than we humanly do already. We don't need that.
DON'T LET THEM OFF THE HOOK.