CX experience levels

[LongTimeInCX]

In the '777 low at SFO' thread, people discussed events that CX have had in the past.
Do you see them as symptomatic of a flawed system; be it recruitment or training, or just an ever increasing reliance on automation that erodes the flying skills many of us once were proud of.
How many of you are old enough to relate to a phrase I heard recently - "The older I get, the better I was". It got me thinking, if the airline is going to be headline news, what will be the likely cause and are some aspects changeable to minimize that threat.

Like many of us at CX, I have friends who work for other large and similarly 'safe' airlines.
As usual, when guys get together, we predictably chat about politics, sport, women and bull**** about flying and how good we are.
It should therefore be no surprise to hear that the events CX have had over the years, discussed in that thread, whilst all having the potential for a hull loss, have many similarities with events that have occurred in the airlines my friends work for, and they still continue to occur.
I also know two guys who worked for Asiana, and one of them discussing the SFO event said no surprise that it occurred, simply amazed it has taken so long, and that there's only been one crash - so far!
Evidently working there entails adapting to a very 'interesting' and different cockpit culture, and he was the captain. Simulator checks could fill a whole new topic.
So the relatively minor instances that occured at CX, are in reality not out of the ordinary, despite being undesirable to say the least. At best, they are humble and constant reminders of self imposed stuff ups which thankfully we can all learn from.

Let's face it, every flight has a possibility of the aircraft and occupants ending up in kit form.

However, it's the steps we as pilots, and the company, put in place prior to a flight that either reduce or increase the risk.
Once at dispatch and when you subsequently get on board, it's the scene the Captain sets, regardless of who is PM/PF, that again will add or detract to the likelihood of a successful outcome to the flight, by his words, actions and leadership, to ensure all crew know they can speak up if unhappy about any and every aspect of the flight.

Is CX immune from having a dingle? Clearly not.

Regardless of the management throwing constant changes to policy, or asking the Captain to smile and sit up straight making a PA, or playing the industrial relations two-step on housing/pay/T&Cs- all potential distractors - in general, our company rules for operating are reasonable provided we do our part. With that is the need to command when airborne and not delegate ones decision making to those armchair bound sitting safe and snug in IOC.

Luckily also for CX, is that at least for the time being, they still have crews, who for the most part, are not afraid to be very vocal when things are not going to plan. CX are also still very fortunate to have retained a good, but dwindling, experience level due to the fact that historically crew were only hired if they had many hours and/or varied experience, and for the time being, many of these elder folks remain.
The retirement bulge over the next few years will naturally deplete that experience bank.

We all know commercial and accountants have had disproportionate control or influence over the path our recruitment policy has headed, we all know it's for the worse, but I'll leave ear-rings and hair-gel out of it for now. Sadly, it is likely to take a serious accident, before common sense returns, and the company again realise there is no substitute for skill and experience.

I hope I will be proved wrong, but my biggest concern, based on a couple of anecdotal wtf's, is that if or when CX has a serious incident or worse, and I need to be somewhat PC here, (and this is not intended as a race issue) it's more a cultural aspect; operating crew need to be mindful of the situations where our locally hired cadet pilots, if crewed together fall in to the trap of feeling afraid to speak up, save he/she causes embarrassment or loss of face to the pilot in the other seat.
Similarly, with some of the i-cadets with next to zero real experience, with an adverse cockpit gradient, they can find themselves in a similar position.
The supposition on the '777 low@SFO' thread that a SFO event, or similar stuff up, could not happen in CX, unfortunately should not be discounted.

So if the great unwashed traveling public are sensible and vocal enough to demand safer airlines, then the airlines need to go back to hiring experienced pilots.
Newbie pilots should start with operators on smaller aircraft, flying high frequency routes to get their feet under the table. Larger airlines need to bite the bullet and pay more to those, by now more experienced pilots to attract that hard earned and invaluable experience, and if it costs more for a ticket -tough!
Passengers should really consider just how much their life is worth.

Rant over, getting off soap box, tin hat on.

My keyboard really should have a red wine interlock!

[AnAmusedReader]

Not PC enough

Interesting post LTICX but I fear that you were guilty of not being PC enough.

The experience levels in our cockpits has nothing to do with local pilots, the more senior of whom have been through the system for years and thoroughly so.

The problem will come with the many new joining cadets, from all over the world not just local HK guys and girls, who will fill the cockpit in years to come after us old farts have gone. There's nothing wrong with them except they don't bring with them (apart from a very few exceptions) any experience whatsoever other than what they learned at Adelaide. You can buy experience - CX used to do it and did it well - or you can ignore it. The bean counters just don't care or understand so they ignore it and, I fear, our pilot managers are not listened to when they raise it - and I know they do.

[raven11]

Two very good posts....

Amused reader, I wish our pilot managers would be more forceful and slam their fists down on the table, if need be, to raise their concerns. I'm so tired of seeing them yield to one particular manager. Senior management must be made to understand that they need to implement some check and balance to any one manager's authority. This is not an industrial rant but a plea for a more common sense approach, an approach that will allow one manager's authority to be overridden and action taken when safety is being compromised.

In our industry we can minimize the risk with a more balanced decision making process.....we simply must find a way to mitigate against those who argue against a better approach to recruitment and training by always pointing to the cheapest option.

[Threethirty]

It's pretty obvious that an airline should hire candidates from a variety of different backgrounds, cadet, DEP and military. A failure to do so will lead to logistical problems down the line. These lot below seem to have it right:

TRAINING: BA broadens pilot hiring over crew shortage concerns

[nightdriver]

One part of the problem, as I see it, is that the CX program of ground school is such a "sausage machine" that no one really learns anything of any value. That was bad enough for the experienced hires. At best it is/was a waste of a day of work where something meaningful could have been learned. But this model really has not changed and now we have people joining with no experience whom are not being developed from a knowledge base perspective. As an example, I find it is not uncommon on the line, if you dig below the surface, to find an SO (and sometimes a newer FO) who does not truly understand the CFP and how to use it. Just filling out the time and fuel logs. And frankly many don't care to know more than that.

[VR-HFX]

LTICX

How very true.

I learned some years ago that the best I can do to alleviate this problem is to try and pass on what I can, whenever I can, to any of the youngsters willing to listen. Not surprisingly many are willing and appreciative.

I think that is the best us old farts can do without getting an ulcer taking on Kitty City.

Most of the CX cadets I have flown with over the years are first class listeners and learners and have made good commanders.

Flying an aircraft has nothing to do with race but everything to do with culture, both teaching and learning.

[twotigers]

"Flying an aircraft has nothing to do with race but everything to do with culture, both teaching and learning."

Truest thing ever posted on this forum

[flyingkiwi]

Agree with all of the above,

However spending all my time sitting next to the new SO's that are coming into the airline, I have noticed a very large drop in standard. half of them cant make a HF radio call, which is just as important today as 10 years ago. and a lot of the SOs im flying with now just don't care.

[geh065]

However spending all my time sitting next to the new SO's that are coming into the airline, I have noticed a very large drop in standard. half of them cant make a HF radio call, which is just as important today as 10 years ago. and a lot of the SOs im flying with now just don't care.

Unfortunately that has little to do with experience levels because as you rightly say, they just don't care. Having a little more experience they likely still won't care.

[Captain Dart]

To a point, I sympathise with them. With decades to Command, a sub-standard salary, no chance of a basing and inadequate housing, I see why. Where's the motivation? The airline gets what it pays for.

'Angel' C might be in for a few more dressing-downs by the Chinese authorites when these boys start missing calls .

[VforVENDETTA]

Of course it's possible to hire people with very little experience and still have a very good safety record. There are examples of European carries which hire cadets and have an enviable safety record. Lufthansa for example. The difference is our training CULTURE, which is a sad joke. Our training system is a sad joke. And the standard product coming out from the end of the training pipeline is very varied with different individuals having completely different ideas about the same subjects. We don't have dedicated ground school instructors. Ops Specs instruction is given by line pilots who don't have a clue what they're doing and mostly waste our time in what inadequately little classroom time is alloted. The systems CBT course is a total joke and badly mis-connected with too little information. It will never come close to a knowledgable dedicated classroom instructor. And it only gets worse as time goes by as we don't have a reccurent training system thought by dedicated ground school instructors to reinforce the subjects and clarify new changes.
If you ask too many questions or make the big mistake of making any suggestions, all you've done is to place your own name on one of the many lists kept on the third floor. In fact, the wiser among us follow the advice given by many who have been here much longer than we have and avoid the nasty little man training manager with a reputaion like the pleague and never even walk by the office and keep our heads down year after year not making any noise.
EVERYBODY relies heavily on test answer material (VOL 8) floating around to get past the checking and testing events because they don't expect to pass based on the training alone. Such is our culture.

To those who defend our operational/flight deck culture... you are sadly mistaking if you think we have a superior culture which will save us from accidents. A culture that allows the words "non-standard" to ever be spoken on the flight deck followed by an action which is clearly not according to SOPs, is seriously flawed. We have that infection in our culture. We're STANDARD until it is decided that we don't want to be? At least twice I've heard those words spoken on the flight deck and it ended in an embarrassing way to say the least, and both times it was done by senior checker/trainers.

[bm330]

Sit down with a trainer these days and be astounded by the stories coming out of the mill. We are well into the JFO upgrade cycle that includes many zero or low time guys courtesy of the accountants. Of course many advance without issue but many are using an extension to the lufus extension and ........ nobody wants to see somebody washed out. The erosion of the marginal skills developed in Oz sitting and watching the world go by for the last three years is not a best case scenario either.

[Maid Day]

Vendetta & All,

Very well said Vendetta, a very important topic, a real serious issue, and I fully agree that change is needed ASAP in this regard. I am so disappointed that this is going unchanged all these years, with Engineering, the head of the Simulator Department, the head of TST, all willing and eager so share this new found and recurrent information to the pilots.

The issue is the balance sheet, we might be an airline, but we are a business.

Our directors have no "long term self-interest in CX," nor long-term integrity for the airline & brand. Their primary interest, is the company annual results, this year, and a few to come, not the stability, reputation, financial and political health, etc., in 10-15 years time. These "suits" will either be finishing off in another role amongst the Swire Gang, but most likely will have their assets and days off, secure in hand, feet up and retired in Monaco or such.

If our airline were serious about their long-term future (as CX's Employee's have), it me would start from the top, allowing those of us at the bottom, to fearlessly recommend ideas to enhance our safety, customer relations, operations, or anything within reason to make us a better organization. This is what is known as "Modern Management." Commonly used and well practiced by the most well respected employers globally, Fortune 500's, etc., including some airlines themselves.

For "Our Airline's" safety sake, why in God's name (Vendetta's topic,) are we not under undergoing annual (or bi-annually) a '3-5 day recurrent ground school,' covering everything from basic operations, to complex emergency handling, hot topics, changes in a fleet's aircraft's systems (hidden to flight crew), maintenance-system practices to improve pilot-engineering communication, etc. Then fishing off with written input from the trainees for company review, to enhance "our" operation? The CAD should mandate such an event, as other ICAO Aviation Authorities mandate for obvious safety reasons. Why can we not mandate it, it is our company too.

Why do we as the employee group have "no say, no input" and "no control" with the board director’s decisions? It's the employees that built this airline, continue to strengthen it, and the early days were mishandled, as employees did not take action to ensure financial involvement. If a company-stock purchasing, options, & stock sharing program were embraced, with profits allocated to staff via CX-stock, "WE" as the company (THE STAFF) would be involved to a real level that is surely in the interest of any company. Our various junior and senior staff from various departments, the real experts, should be involved in critical board divisions, our allocated individuals from each department involved in such meetings. This is our airline too.

These "suits" shall not abuse OUR airline, come to join CX for their relatively short term, high paid duty, taking their annual cash bonus in hand annually. We should change this horrible self-interest pay system to that of the wise Warren Buffet; ensuring all directors do, and HAVE, a long-term interest in the financial (amongst all other aspects) in the airline and our group of CX subsidiaries.

This can be done one of a few ways; instead of high salaries, and high annual cash bonuses, we (our company) provide reward in the form of company stock, which is contractually locked for a long period of time, 10-20 years, a gradual ability to cash out; in return, creating a long term financial success of CX.

And, stop the "annual" & manipulated "mark-to-marketing" bullsh**; stop the complicated complaints to staff about the eroding bottom line, pay us fairly WITH inflation like EVERY OTHER COST TO THE AIRLINE, and finally, WHEN a cash bonus is payable to a director or manager, make this "annual bonus" paid out 5-10+ years later. As his/her actions of this year, last year, etc., will affect the airline for MANY YEARS to come.

Annual results are a manipulated method for directors to get their pie without the integrity of long-term responsibility.

As for our new method of hiring ONLY zero-time experienced pilots, this is a mistake. The results of this mistake will surface not this year or next, but when these "suits" are long gone, having financially manipulating OUR AIRLINE, and unsure, as they do not care, of the risks and costs this decision carry's, do to my statement above. We ALL know, there is not a procedure to follow for aircraft emergencies, it's the background of our past flying experience, even if it only happens to be CX time, that allows are grey matter to strategize a survival outcome, usually involving our actual aircraft handing skills to a level we never wish the sane of us wish never to be challenged with. CX780 in example, an incredible outcome, to what likely would have been an accident if the majority of pilot's were challenged with the same situation.

The general public will become aware of the eroding flight crew experience at CX, and it will result in a number of issues. Not having a strong training system in place is downright wrong, and legally, will definitely surface, just a matter of time. All ERAS documents are accessible, and the lawyers will have a "hay-day" with the competence reports, critiquing all of us in one way or another, of having "known" weaknesses. The courts will not take such formal company documentation lightly.

Our MNGT, rather than simplify this critical documentation system, feel they should further detail issues of flight crew ability. If we, as a pilot group, along with the CX legal department, were in fact invited, or were obligated to be in attendance at 'Board meetings,' what do you think we would have to say? Provide real training, scrap all documentation for legal purposes, and ensure your pilots are competent, rather than making a note of weaknesses, The reports (ERAS - Emotional Report And Senseless) true or not, an "emotional opinion" of a "pilot" (just a pilot - not an instructor, trained professionally, at a university or flight training regulator), whom "makes these critical and legal judgments."

The airline has a lot right, but a fast growing list of doing things "wrong." For the younger pilots at CX, keep your CV & licensing overseas valid, this is a short-term opportunity, as per the viewpoint of our very own "directors."

Thank you for the discussion, taking the time to see my point of view, and I hope for a intelligent thread, perhaps even resulting in any positive change. I would have wrote such on the AOA forum, but I would like the management of Cathay Pacific to honestly look in the mirror, with hope, that they see light and positive idea.

MD.

[Threethirty]

Maid and V, two of the best posts I've ever read on Pprune!

[Freehills]

I don't get this "CX has short term directors" meme. It looks like only the IT director and the finance director haven't been with CX/ Swire pretty much their whole working life.


I think that is also a problem, that without enough outsiders to challenge, Cathay is too conservative. The big US airlines are now making much higher profits, after being forced to re-invent themselves - e.g. charging for check in bags & inflight meals, make more use of internet etc. A director having dinner with his friends though wants to hear them praise the great service - despite evidence that most people just want the cheapest ticket. The fastest growing airlines in Asia are Air Asia/ Lion Air/ Jetstar, not Singapore Airlines/ Cathay/ JAL.

Employee owned airlines haven't had a good track record (United/ VARIG)

[Pucka]

v and Maid..good posts and yes, I guess you have heard a few of the horror stories coming out of cadet land. The problem is not just cultural but also an authority based issue..there is an attitude that seems to allow a zero to hero nature to imbibe..Oz qualified, degree earners with a Cert Flying seem to think they can bounce from SO to management in a flick. There was one example of a SO even reporting a STC for both reading a newspaper on a long haul flight during a LFUS break and under training on LFUS. Another STc was hauled over the coals for bolting on additional training items that were not in LFUS but considered excellent tools for the job!!..in the latter case, the SO complained to management that his trainer was not sticking to training protocol..result!! trainer resigned.
We have a culture that no longer supports a robust training system. Thats why we continue to check and under train..if we train at all. The caliber of trainers that put their hands up on a non merit based system fall victim by default of a system that dilutes the product..cheapens its worth and diminishes the role and significance of solid and sound training. The newbies are very much under the impression that training per say, finishes in Adelaide...one even said that she could sign the maintenance log, since thats what she did on the Duchess!!....please...

[The FUB]

Very good posts so far, so I will give my 2 euro cents.

Those ex-military will remember that we got hired, into the military, from the street with no or little flying experience. However, the difference then is that the failure rate was around 35-40% of those starting flying training to those checking out on to a squadron. Probably the same for the GA guys and self-improvers, but you had to spend your own money somewhere down the line, the military guys got it for the Queen's shilling.

Fast forward to the present day. CX are only hiring cadets so there are no experienced pilots bringing their family to HKG, we are only employing persons in their early 20's, people with nothing to give, everything to take, and of course, in 10 years time, so the recruiters will tell, you will be a well-paid captain on the base of your choice.

QUESTION: How many fail cadet training? How many fail SO training?

By simply allowing the person to progress, (perhaps because you do not want to be involved in someone being sacked or more likely out of apathy), the future generation of pilots will be hamstrung with the less able. The gene pool will be diluted. An failure rate of at least 10% should, normally be expected. Sadly this is the chosen path for CX.

The past mission statement to be the best airline in the world has been eroded to become: The Cheapest Airline in the World.

[crwkunt roll]

allowing those of us at the bottom, to fearlessly recommend ideas to enhance our safety, customer relations, operations, or anything within reason to make us a better organization.

The last 2nd officer who decided to recommend stuff to management was sacked. (yr 2000) they're not about to listen to a 21 year old who knows nothing. That's what this whole thread is about.

[CokeZero]

Give the new guys the experience. Guve them more training, more lofts, more sims etc etc.

Dragon Air give their pilots more of it. Our guys get the bare minimum of sims then told to sit on their hands for 2-4 years..... WTF!

Cost cutting is not the answer. Time to invest some money in the future.

CZ

[positionalpor]

Vendetta And May Day , excellent posts. Spot on
To remain in the PFT realm here it is another interesting article.

EasyJet's new jobs initiative tagged 'extremely disingenuous' by The British Airline Pilots' Association | Mail Online