One disappointing observation: some feed back from a training department is that one of the worst performed manoeuvres is a surprised 2 engine normal G/A; in the sim. yet this is one of the most likely encounters on the line. Most airlines have a 'no blame' policy for G/A's. They have a very strict stable landing gate criteria. Yet do they introduce practice of this manoeuvre every sim session? No: it's not a mandatory prof check item. It might occur in a recurrency LOFT, it might not. What adds to the screw up is that the SOP G/A is not written the same as a normal takeoff. So here is a badly performed manoeuvre; can happen as a surprise, or anticipated, but will always be a little stressful; is known to cause problems but is written different to the every day stressless takeoff. In other words the SOP is contributing to the mediocre performance. Surely that needs changing.
Many are asking why XAA's do not insist their national airlines adopt a more appropriate training syllabus. I ask, why has training been allowed to be diluted? Why has the basic MPL been cut to the bones? Why have prof check items not been updated in decades? Why have FTL's been stretched? Why has the whole industry been allowed to be dumbed down in so many aspects? IMHO the tail is wagging the dog and the lobbing of shareholder/share option rewarded managers is what is really controlling the industry. Often there is a discussion from XAA's to improve this or that and the push-back from the airlines is so great, due to loss of profit, that it goes away. If that initiative for improvement came from crews it is almost a death nell for the suggestion. I've worked under various XAA's. A common gripe from crews was the way companies circumvented the spirit of rules, be they FTL's, a/c defects, scheduling etc. The XAA's had deaf ears: but forget to sign a piece of paper 5 times or not fill out every box on a Nav Log and the feedback from the audit ran into pages. It didn't give one much confidence that the industry was in the good hands of the responsible oversee'ers. But then we rarely see any XAA in the dock. It is always either the crew, the company or the manufacturer. IMHO an XAA owns one of the holes in the cheese and sometimes it is open.