HKA Historian is right on the money.
I work there. I see the rubbish these guys promote as "standards". Management is full of self serving xenophobic clowns pretending to know what they are doing. They surround themselves with yes-men and promote as such. FO's are encouraged to come in on days off to work in the office for free so as to win favor with management for command opportunities - and so many of the spineless fools do. What gets some pilots marked as career FO's in one airline gets them promoted at HKA. FO's holding meetings with management pilots to report what other pilots said or did all in an effort to try to win brownie points with management. And it obviously worked for a few. Rumors of FO's coming into the office and working for 8+ hours (for free of course) to edit (make up) flight plans for the CAD inspections... One older FO told me of his base training with another 5 or 6 new joiners. After the flight the BTC recorded TWO landings from the 15 or 18 performed.
LGW? How can there be so many other airlines going to LHR / LGW from HK and HKA can manage to sell 5, 10 or 20 seats a flight? How many times does CX go to LHR? Four flights a day I think. Then there's BA and VA.... And HKA get sometimes 5 or 6 passengers a flight on a service offering cheaper seats than the competitions economy seats?? Go anywhere and ask Joe Public what he knows of HKA let alone the LGW flight. NOTHING. Zero advertising. Zero public awareness. IDIOTS.
Standards? What an insult. TRE/I's turing up to pre flight briefings, sim sessions and at the office in tracksuit tops over their uniform and walking through the terminal as such. Jeans, tee shirt and trainers for the sim sessions.... At a serious airline that would get you sent home, and rightfully so. If you fools can't even stick by a dress code what chance of maintaining any other resemblance of standards? A friend recently told me the TRE arrived 20 mins late for the sim and then announced they'll only do "2 and bit" hours of the scheduled 4 hour RT/PC because he had plans and wanted to be home sooner. And you question why or if they cannot perform a cross wind landing properly?? When they can't even agree on what the standard calls down an ILS let alone dispatch minima then more technical issues are as they are!!!!!
We're an airline packed with incompetence. What's worse is they refuse to acknowledge a damn thing and blame the ground staff, our competition or the EU economy. If you can't even admit your mistakes how the hell can you progress and improve?? At last the CAD has stepped in. We deserve it. Too many LCC 320 heroes without a clue as to long haul ops let alone what an open, honest and safe airline is. CRM? There's another joke. CRM instructors get appointed due their connections and receive a few extra dollars to spit out a powerpoint presentation on topics they have zero actual credentials in anyway. And that same standard is reflected on the flight deck.
Line training standards are the same. Different TRE/I's all crapping on from a different song sheet and repeating "At Air Asia / Air Macau / Tiger / Jetstar we did it this way......" And then if you show the slightest form of knowledge or question their incorrect procedure by opening up one of those "FCOM" thingies then you're told to shut up and the same "In my previous airline....."
So when these guys are the "leaders" and setting the standards what do you expect? I do hope someone from the CAD reads this. And I hope
The frustrating thing is that the airline is full over well qualified pilots who could sort out this crap within 6 months. This isn't wanted because the standards they deliver are not determined by your nationality and need to stick together as such.
But hey, look at the bigger picture. You CX and KA guys shouldn't be speaking of standards. What are your minimum entry requirements nowadays? ZERO hours. At least HKA requires jet time. I've been HKA for 2 years now. I'm leaving. Whether or not this latest incident is pilot error or another airbus quirk it at least draws more attention to these clowns and HOPEFULLY the CAD will really say enough is enough.