The state of the airline industry

[KL-666]

The state of the airline industry is at a fearful low. But it can still go lower by the doing of all participants. The most serious symptom is the decay of pilot training. The knife of bad training cuts on many sides.

On the one hand airlines should install thorough training programs and not cut corners to save a buck. Nowadays there are airlines that never let their pilots fly. They are not allowed to turn off automation and land a plane themselves. Even on the sim check rides they are not allowed to turn off automation during their engine failure practice, etc... Turning off automation is a definite fail of the check ride. These pilots wet their pants at the thought only to have to fly the plane themselves. They are not more qualified than you and i to finish the job successfully. Flying non automated is automatically a crash with them. Examples: Asiana at San Francisco, AF447, AirAsia, and many more.

But pilots are also partly responsible for the quality of their training. There are roughly two types of pilots (and many shades of grey in between):

1) Pilots truly interested in understanding the dynamics of flight. If such pilots feel they are not trained well, they speak up.

2) Nowadays we get whole generations of pilots that are not interested in flight at all. They are happy with airlines training on automation only, so they have to know nothing and let the money flow in. Such pilots do not have a clue whether they are trained good or bad through their own disinterest.

The public can have some influence too. They could stop risking their lives boarding dodgy airlines. But somehow they wish to fool themselves with believing that at every airline there are still two guys called Biggles up front. Which is obviously far from the truth these days.

I choose only airlines of which i positively know training is excellent. KLM, Lufthansa and BA. There are more of course, but i do not know them. Air France is culturally a strange airline in Northern Europe. They fill their cockpits with rich kiddies that are only in it to continue their rich lives. Do not ask me why they have that policy at AF.

And then there is another aspect with people that are very much attached to richness. It is a form of insanity to derive your being from the goods you have. When such people are threatened to loose their ability to impress with money, they do strange things like killing themselves. Now take into account that we have whole generations of such people up our cockpits, then Lubitz is the start of a trend.

Kind regards, Vincent

[legoboyvdlp]

Nowadays there are airlines that never let their pilots fly. They are not allowed to turn off automation and land a plane themselves. Even on the sim check rides they are not allowed to turn off automation during their engine failure practice, etc... Turning off automation is a definite fail of the check ride. These pilots wet their pants at the thought only to have to fly the plane themselves. They are not more qualified than you and i to finish the job successfully. Flying non automated is automatically a crash with them.





Example of such airlines?

[KL-666]

Did i not mention Asiana et al? Does anyone here read before they respond? For the rest you may find out yourself by ploughing through accident reports yourself. That makes you wiser than making gratuit remarks that support the airline industry propaganda.

Kind regards, Vincent

[legoboyvdlp]

I was asking sincerely -- not in a sarcastic way

Apart from Asiana, I am shocked that any airline enforces autoland, as implied by what you said about turning off automation.

Or perhaps I am wrong, and you mean trimming the plane manually, turning off fly-by-wire, and such?

[KL-666]

I am sorry lego, to have reacted a bit agitated. Probably still a knee jerk from the bad attitude of people at the other forum.

The issue is about full auto land (and full autopilot throughout the whole flight actually). This can be found in accident reports and reports from pilots of such airlines at places like pprune. Most affected is about the whole of Asia including the Middle East. But not every airline. Price fighters more often than others. But still it is better that you find out yourself if you want to know exactly which airlines. I did not make notes of all the names, and do not plan to look the names up. It is not like my day job.

Kind regards, Vincent

[legoboyvdlp]

Turkish airlines 737, on autoland, Radio Altimeter says -8 when the altitude is about 1950. Plane idles, and stalls. Pilots do not notice in time to correct.

[KL-666]

There is definitely something wrong with the training at Turkish. They wreck about a plane per year. But i do not recollect mention of forced autopilot use in training there.

Kind regards, Vincent

[HJ1an]

You're scaring me. It's great you have access to airlines that train their pilots very highly. For me, I have access to pretty much just 2 (major) airlines - both of which were involved in major incidents in the last 2 years. You know which 2 I'm talking about.

Now, I think Malaysia Airlines actually do train their pilots highly - or at least - they DID. I believe they had KLM (or a similar company) contracted to do their planes and training, I believe. No major incidents between the early 70s (a hijacking) and 2014 (MH370) .

Now for AirAsia... don't know. A big question mark. The fact I didn't see them conduct a walk around check is not giving me confidence.

And also, I still have to fly later this month.

There is definitely something wrong with the training at Turkish. They wreck about a plane per year.

And they still have planes left?

[KL-666]

You're scaring me.

That is the whole point of my wake up call. Everyone should be concerned about what they fly.

About Malaysia i would not not be too worried. Some incidents mean nothing. What is it Malaysia's fault that they got shot out of the air? And i do not recall any mention of malpractice in their training. So they should be good.

AirAsia is another story. They are of the kind to not train their pilots. I would not for my life enter an AirAsia.

Btw, Turkish has enough aircraft to last them another 300 years a crash per year.

Kind regards, Vincent

[HJ1an]

What is it Malaysia's fault that they got shot out of the air? And i do not recall any mention of malpractice in their training. So they should be good.

And that's my concern. The airline had been going through major cost cuts lately, major restructuring and huge layoffs after MH370. Even about 10 years ago, signs of these troubles started to seep through, which are, at the time already very serious. As OK as they are with what they had previously, they had really stupid management. There are plenty of mishandling of money, and as everyone around the whole world can see during the MH370 episode, the last CEO and gang looked like they only existed in the company to go golfing;


(CEO at far left)

And from what I know of stupidly large organizations, during a layoff, the upper management tend to save themselves, tend to choose people they don't like to go, and mavericks who speak out and stood for the greater good are usually the first ones to go, especially if they tend to speak out and conflict with the upper managements' etc .

As for MH17, they could have avoided the warzone entirely, it wasn't exactly a completely random accident (like say, a meteorite landing on a plane). Korean Air, who had previously had TWO missile shotdowns, had done the proactive thing and flew around the zone. Most US airlines also went around it as well.