Reality vs. Grudges/Distortions
Hello all,
I am a Turkish citizen and F/O on the 737 at the most popular company of this thread. First off I'd like to thank for all the constructive criticism brought about by the news story that will help with the wave of change we have been experiencing here. However, I had been waiting to hear out all the opinions before throwing in my 2 cents, hoping to avoid all biases. Which turned out to be a wise decision, observing the haste with which some colleagues rushed in to vomit their political and racist spiel that had nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Then there were quite a few who did have a myriad of valid points and no stereotypes but gave into painting a skewed picture by making gross generalizations. I'm sure most of those people come to think of themselves as civilized folks going through their daily routines, and probably could not have employed the same haste or tone face to face. They just happen to be a few examples of many out there in cyberspace who give in to the ease of bashing things they know or think little about, at the ease of clicks and keystrokes, which saves them the reality of daring to deliver their hate speeches in public. I cannot help but think their actual purpose in doing so is putting on a show for themselves, which they do not possess the guts to do in public. Call it ego issues, inferiority complex or whatever you will, but not the least courteous or civilized. Come to think of it most of these people could go on and on preaching about CRM, the gradient, professionalism and courtesy and yada yada yada. Yeah guys, we all see it in you!
For all the points brought up by the newspaper article and those colleagues who claim to have worked at THY, most of them hold. I have to point out however that there are some gross generalizations and accusations. I also cannot help but wish those people had raised voices while they were here with us instead of flaming about it to their domestic media. Yes we have plenty of old school guys here who "do not need checklists to fly", we have plenty who could improve their use of the English language, plenty of machoism and disrespect for professionalism, plenty of undertrained/underexperienced people who have slipped through cracks based on acquaintances, and so on, but they do not account for the whole. While plentiful in numbers and perhaps still seated at a few of the key positions in the company those people do not make up a significant percentage. Above all, things are changing. We talk of France, Italy, Spain and Greece having had to change their ways. So most of you know how sluggish and painful change is. I was not trained in Turkey and I have gone through somewhat of a culture shock getting used to flying with the occasional nutcase, maybe once a month. I do not think that attributing the presence of such people is doing the rest of us justice. Day in, day out I work with some of the most enjoyable and courteous people out there, Turkish or otherwise, I can only look forward to flying with them again.
I have to point out that I have seen the worst of some of the foreigners as well. They suffer from the same problems that Turks are blamed for. Yet I regret to see some of my colleagues making definitive statements on the thread, based on brief experiences or assumptions. If you've only been here for an interview, or a sim ride, or your friend told you about it, I don't think you should be joining the bandwagon so fast. I have flown with many foreign captains since they started joining and have exchanged conversations with probably twice as many. While touching on the fact that we do have idiots flying with us and going through our mandatory company gossip, they are glad to be working with most of us who are here to stay at THY. This in turn enables me to assess the credibility of some of the assertions made by those who say they have "seen it all"
Last edited by plane geek; 15th Dec 2011 at 16:58.
Reason: typos