Island Air Photo...
I am sure there is no SOP in any Airline for pilots to just blast thru CB's.
I have not detected in this thread a cavalier attitude toward thunderstorms;
rather quite the opposite.
While flying formation in an F4 Phantom, my lead flew into an embedded Tstorm near Iwakuni, Japan. Airspeed was 400kts indicated at about 10,000 ft.
Was in the CB for maybe 10-15 seconds. We exited about 90 degrees off original heading and inverted, with lead aircraft on some other goofy heading and far from us. Our G meter showed a reading of a shade over 6 g's and a minus 2 g's. Fortunately there was no hail encounter.
They can quite easily destroy airliners, a fact I am certain the Captain and First Officer of the Air Asia A320 were well aware of.