AF has had more than their fair share of incidents/accidents in recent times. If I were their CEO I would have an outside company undergo a thorough audit on their training and proficiency standards. Something is not right.
Show me one airline that does not have incidents on a regular basis. It's called "flying the line" or "sh!t happens". I agree the attitude and/or culture can and does play a role however even operators with a better safety record deal with incidents and their tendencies every week. It's a constant improvement process. My airline publishes safety bulletins on a regular basis, if I'd publish every incident on here, you won't be able to sleep! I bet you the same with your operator or your favorite airline.
Could it also be that perhaps the real problem is not really the safety culture, but rather an extremely arrogant superiority complex culture, also known as French chauvinism? An inbred culture that is not open for change? A culture that prevents fresh (foreign!? English?!) ideas and lessons to take root? A culture that insists of doing everything "the French way" by actively swimming against the stream of common sense, from speaking French to ATC, to having checklists and call outs in French and making an LP6 in French more important than an LP6 in English?
French vs. English. Another PpruNe pet argument. Open your horizon and look at some Canadian operators. Or look further South where people speak Spanish (Shock, Horror!). According to your theory planes should be flying out of the skies daily! I disagree that speaking English to ATC in France/or elsewhere will improve
anything. Other countries do it their way also (using their native language), and many people live with it just fine! I have discussed this issue many times here, and I firmly believe that this argument is a PpruNe Francophobic pet argument (did you know that even Germany allows German/English ATC radio comm?). Why is the language issue mainly brought up with France on this bulletin board? There is more airspace on this planet where Spanish is used. But there's hardly any complaint! Why is it that mainly the Brits complain about France and their ways? Contempt, historical roots, war of cultures? I have yet to see the same amount of discussions on this issue on a US bulletin board. And there is Spanish-speaking airspace "down South" that's much more challenging! Besides, on a busy frequency (ORD, JFK, CDG, FRA sometimes) it is nearly impossible to maintain aural situation awareness just by listening. The TCAS screen/overlay has mainly solved that problem.
So why aren't there that many topics about British, Dutch, Italian or Spanish airlines then?
This being said, maybe AF are on news because the French Safety Office (BEA) issues bimonthly lists of incidents on their public website. Not many safety offices do the same.... Not seen, not caught!
Thank you! I was looking for this reporting reference. I wonder how many other authorities are doing "this" to their national/favorite carriers? Remember the LH crosswind/wingtip incident in HAM? This incident was brought to the public's attention not through a safety report but YouTube. And that video was taken off line several times, in order to prevent bad publicity.
This whole safety statistic argument is mainly fruitless because there are no standards in what gets reported, what operator was involved, and what gets published (to the average plebs, anyway).
I was unfortunate enough to fly a now defunct Mexican carrier called
Aerolineas Internacionales. PERFECT record! No accidents or incidents. On paper!
In German there is a good saying "
Papier ist geduldig"