Originally Posted by
Airbubba
We've had unannounced line checks in the U.S. for decades in my experience. Sometimes you know you are due for a line check (every two years for the PIC in an FAA AQP program) or can see an extra body on the flight crew list in the computer when you take a look at your jumpseat riders. Other times you are doing the departure paperwork when the 'friendly stranger' approaches you and announces that you are being checked.
Usually the line check with U.S. carriers is cordial and instructive unless you are not doing your job and something goes wrong during the flight. Don't know the failure rate but where I've worked, they are not out to get you in my opinion. I had a line check with a low fuel weather divert a few years ago and I put the check airman to work looking up alternates and communicating with dispatch. He was very pleased with the CRM and so was I.
I don't mean this in a rude way, but there is zero comparison between a Western, monoculture airline in the USA and an expat airline based in the Middle East. Completely different cultures in both the geographic and company sense.