The average each month this year is 48. It's a great opportunity for some with little experience.
The issue is that management have seen what they propose work in a stable environment with a closely supervised, single culture airline where communication skills are not an issue.
You can make a slight adjustment to adapt training in one or two areas but a wholesale change will lead to disaster.
So far to attract numbers we have got HR to select pilots and decided the sim cannot be failed, just need more training I am told. Would a crash in an actual aircraft disbar a pilot?
Add to that, experienced Captains leaving and pilots with poor foundation training being recruited. Then a change to recurrent training, inexperienced trainers, a watering down of the command LOE. I think we will need extra sticking plaster for the Swiss Cheese.
In the past we selected pilots on the following criteria:
1. Demonstrable quality of basic training
2. Sufficient hours to gain a reasonable level of jet experience
3. Familiarity with one of our aircraft types
4. A safe national aviation industry.
5. Maturity
New requirements:
1. Ability to BS HR
2. A pulse
3. Having seen a jet
The risks we face on the line will go through the roof. Pilots with shady basic training, poor language skills, way behind the jet are about to be released to fly to Hong in a typhoon along with a Captain who's LOE stretched as far as a computer reset.. What could possibly go wrong?
Well we have evidence, GPWS warnings ignored, high energy approaches, just look at the data from when we lowered DEC requirements around 2005.
Good luck to all
