Are you implying Qatar isn’t a proper airline? Anyone who flies international often would likely rate it at the highest levels currently. My current lowest ranked crap airline is British. God have the Europeans grown lazy.
There's a difference between the onboard service and cabin (and god are BA shit), and the flight safety.
That said BA earned a hell of a black mark when it chose to divert to Heathrow rather than Stansted or even Gatwick when its engine was on fire [1]. Not as much as when Air France decided to divert from Lebanon to Damascus in the middle of a civil war rather than Cyprus because it was cheaper [2]
> That said BA earned a hell of a black mark when it chose to divert to Heathrow rather than Stansted or even Gatwick when its engine was on fire
After declaring an emergency, if they landed at Heathrow, that was at the pilot's discretion or due to limiting factors like runway length at Gatwick and the weight of their plane. The article is light on detail but they circled over Kent as well, so the pilots must have thought it was safe after shutting down the engine.
I'd guess they knew it was safe and it's easier to deal with a plane full of pax at your originating airport than diverting to STN (where there's no BA ops) or LGW (BA have ops here so could have worked).
Honestly I’ll take the incremental odds that I’ll be the unlucky guy in the first ever Qatar plane crash over the absolute dogpile BA calls service now (having just received my missed business class bag after a full week of no communication or updates).
Safety and customer experience are two different things that may not correlate much most of the time. I'll rather have top quality pilots and maintenance than friendliest flight attendants if I have to choose between two.
I prefer a pleasant flight than to fly a shitty airline.
And as a frequent flyer of European airlines for intercontinental flights, the quality of the flight experience pales in contrast with Qatar.
You don't know how good the pilot is until it gets you out of a really bad situation that the AP cannot manage. Most airline pilots do very little actual flying: takeoffs mostly, and depending on how new the plane is and the type of runways they land on, some just use auto-land systems.
You're most likely to find more experienced pilots flying small commercial planes without AP than actual proper airline pilots.
Autoland is not the common landing method unless you're in very poor visibility. Pilots DO use it in good weather or other situations, but that's mostly to keep current on their certifications for its use. For those who are curious, look up Category III (Cat III) or 0/0 approaches. Those are the ones autoland are intended for.
Secondly, amongst pretty much every common definition of experience "small commercial plane" operators are almost always less experienced than airline pilots, at least in the US. The reason for this is simple, to be a commercial pilot you need 250 hours of flight experience. To be an airline pilot you need 1500. Small commercial businesses are commonly where pilots pick up the experience needed to even apply to be an airline pilot.
Other common sources: 1) Flight instructing (also a small commercial gig), 2) The military, 3) Aviation schools and lots of $$$$
> Most airline pilots do very little actual flying: takeoffs mostly, and depending on how new the plane is and the type of runways they land on, some just use auto-land systems.
And that's precisely why I also care about pilot quality before how pleasant the service is. The moment something goes awry with the automated systems you better have a good crew flying your plane than a crew who's much more reliant on instruments and automation.
It's like insurance, I'd rather choose to never have to use it but the moment I need it you bet I'll be very grateful that I preferred a very good coverage than the cheapest option out there.
Agreed on most parts, but at some point you have to start deciding whether the safety tradeoff is worth it. You’re still more likely to die on the car ride to the airport than in the plane, yet we all do it still. And the “quality” of service is not just slightly off, it’s wildly off to the extent it genuinely distresses you even when everything is going right, leave alone the hell British creates if even something goes wrong. Again, until something actually crashes I’ll reserve judgement on whether the slight increase in supposed risk for the middle eastern airlines is even real.
The increased risk people are talking about have been demonstrated in the form of crashed airliners.
The entire rubric of reporting deviations early and often was developed as it was identified as a major cause of crashes in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
Per this particular incident: It is a big deal the FO screwed up. It's a bigger deal that the screwup was not reported, as it's an indication that the culture of the airline is more concerned with reputation than keeping everyone alive.
