Thanks for you “enlightening” commentary up there, Sunliner; almost had me a good laugh here; and you saying you had “no problem” with the Vietnamese Culture in the Aviation business for me only means you were either legless all the time, as lazy or even as incompetent as the majority of them; either way, you must have flown in VNA a long time ago or you’re not familiar at all with the Workhorse (A321) Fleet. But, good for you, makes me feel resentful, almost! I have to deal with those apathetic, benighted, insolent primates on a daily basis...
So, sketchy rumors are coming out day by day about an event that supposedly occurred last month up North in Ha Noi involving a very capable Russian Captain and an imbecile local FO; turns out that following VNA SOP, as much as management and Instructors say will protect you always, actually does not. And why is this not mentioned in the monthly safety briefing? Is it that much of an embarrassment to the locals?
So, mentioned Russian Captain, Pilot Flying, with Local (Vietnamese) FO who does as SOP dictates, “the walk around”; plane takes off and ends up returning to departure Airport because incompetent FO did not see that the Static Ports were still covered up. Personally I don’t think he went to do the walk around, he went for a smoke somewhere. And it doesn’t end there…
CAAV comes in, and hand in hand with VNA, instead of praising the Captain for brining a broken bird back in one piece (experts here know how many Jets crashed due to Static Ports blocked) they actually SUSPEND the Fella! For two months! Congrats!
In ANY other company he would have gotten a medal; not here! Here that gets you 2 months unpaid leave!
That was at the beginning of April; its almost the end of May, and managers are still debating what in their miraculous SOP’s they should change to make flying at VNA safer; well, if one of you Management Turds is reading this, I highly recommend taking some of the inputs from Expatriats serious! Some of us actually got quite a bit of experience in this **** but as you’re either too proud to admit your own failures or too busy covering up all the daily crap of your incompetent local pilots; that must take quite a lot of time away from developing no-nonsense and common-sense SOP’s for your fleets! This kind of incompetent managerial behavior only leads to utter lack of credibility in your abilities from your peers, that is if there is actually any at all there anymore! Bloody hell, you would actually kill people and STILL believe VNA is a safe, competent and coordinated airline.
Once again, if you are employed, go somewhere better; if you have no other choice, I’d recommend anyone but this outfit!
Good luck!