Originally Posted by Uplinker
BUT THEY DON'T CARE.
It does not affect their balance sheet, so they don't need to pay it much attention. They only pretend to care about safety. It's like politicians pretending to believe in God. Believing in God gets the politicians votes. Pontificating about safety gets the CEOs passengers for their airline.
If conditions get so bad that pilots leave, the CEO will just hire more new pilots. (At a reduced salary of course. A benefit to the CEO is that with a high staff turnover, they can drive wages down).
Many companys nowadays are run like this. The CEOs know that all they need to do is slash operating costs by reducing training, maintenance and salaries, and increase hours …
Not too very long ago, in a thread under Tech Log (entitled “Hand flying skills not a priority says Embry Riddle educator”) during a discussion on practicing certain skills and skill-sets by pilots during initial and/or recurrent flight training, I said the following:
Originally Posted by AirRabbit
It seems to me that if this “practice” can be beneficial, but someone, someplace has decided “not-on-my-airline/airplane,” things are likely not to change unless someone in a superior position (either in fact or in theory) to those who are currently “having it their own way,” clearly says what will be done and makes this “hand flying” exposure a regular occurrence. Again, it seems that this will occur only if one of 2 things take place; 1) similar thinking line pilots pool their resources and buy the airline from the current owner and make such a practice logical and expected; or 2) the regulator adds such a requirement to the regulations and thereby makes such a practice necessary to comply with the rules, if not logical and expected as well … and I’ll leave to your imagination which of those alternatives is the most logically to occur … at least, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Well … my opinion hasn’t changed. I continue to advocate that the really important “stuff” that has to be known about, understood, practiced … and practiced to the point that it becomes close to “automatic,” simply has to be accomplished. If it means having a more sophisticated piece of training equipment, so be it. If it requires a regulation to require practicing whatever ‘it’ is, so be it.
But, again, I am NOT advocating that a “blank check” be handed to the regulators! Rather, I am advocating that a regular meeting of interested parties (regulators, airline managers, pilots, pilot’s representatives, educators, and anyone – everyone – else who may be able to make meaningful inputs, comments, and/or recommendations about the best way to ensure each pilot behind the controls of an airplane (primarily airline operations) has the very best opportunity to learn, practice, and absorb all there is to know about, and practice performing the appropriate skills necessary, to initiate and follow through on any task set before that pilot. Anything short of that goal will be just that – short of that goal.
This industry has been fortunate enough to have some pretty knowledgeable folks, full of foresight and imagination. I believe we cannot afford to lose those folks. But we ALSO need to find a way to take advantage of what they say, and make what they develop into meaningful examples of professional competence. And if that means putting a new requirement into the regulations – then THAT is exactly what we must do. If an airline manager decides he/she does not want to follow the lawful presence of a regulation – there are ways he/she may go about seeking an exemption – and what would be done would be to provide the proverbial level of safety “equivalent;" BUT knowledgeable folks
MUST be able to agree that what is being proposed really
does provide an equivalent practice that provides an equivalent ability to perform the tasks required to an equivalent level of competence. Anything less is simply NOT
equivalent!
To prevent someone from finding a convenient combination of “words” to “sound” good in support of granting an authorization to disregard a regulatory requirement – the knowledgeable folks who examined, proposed, and wrote that requirement simply MUST be ever-diligent and stand up for what they know - including whether or not a proposed "equivalent level of safety" actually WILL provide that "
equivalent level of safety." Truth is a hard thing to prove at times, but it is the only thing that regularly brings airline flights to successful and safe conclusions.