If one takes a moment to look at CAR 723.107 it becomes pretty clear as to what the SOPs for certain operators must cover. There's a big list, and when one thinks of all of the sub-topics that come with each of those items listed, it becomes even more clear as to how much information there can be regarding the safe handling of an aircraft especially during 703/704 ops.

So, do we all follow them? Hmm… this is a good question and raises some interesting points.

Firstly SOPs are in place for a reason. They leave the guess work out of a lot of things, and lets face it who wants to be guessing at critical phases of flight. Not this guy. Not only do they leave the guess work out of things but they create a standard that if followed by each crew member, will give the desired result at those phases of flight covered by the SOPs. SOPs also often incorporate a margin of safety into the picture which is often exceeding the standard stated by an aircraft manufacturer. This could simply be running an engine at less than the maximum in which the manufacturer states, or a higher rotation speed. Whatever the changes may be, the end result is a safer environment.

So if it's so safe, then why do some just plain ignore these standards? Most captains I fly with are very good in following these standards as set out by the company. They pay attention to them, and dedicate themselves to a safe flight within the guidelines. The result is exactly that, a safe flight and an extremely professional pilot which is what we should all be striving for. There are the few though that want to make their own rules and this starts to become a problem. Remember we're talking about standards here which as already mentioned should give a high degree of equal results by crew who follow them. Let’s use a scenario here to further a point. In our scenario we will have a Captain, and a First Officer. This FO has been flying with many captains, each of which follow the SOPs and have done a great service in the name of education to the FO. The FO has a firm grasp of standards and procedures and is eager to become the professional pilot. At some point though this FO will fly with a few captains that have less regard for rules and are more interested in making there own. What happens if this FO begins his training with such a captain? Will he fly with another captain with ease? Will the workload for that captain be reduced as it should be in a two crew environment? No it won't. Standards are also there (in my opinion) to make transitioning between crew members relatively simple. After initial line indoctrination training with a training Captain, there should be no guess work as to what any Captain is going to expect. Unfortunately when you have a few Captains who don’t follow these standards you get stuck guessing and possibly working outside of a comfort zone.

So, back to the initial question, why do some ignore the rules? Well I’ve asked that very question of some of those Captains and the response is generally the same amongst all of them and a startling one at that too. That response is time… “We just don’t have enough time to always follow these rules, if we did we would never been on schedule!” The answer is startling because it basically says we need to rush through things in order to be on schedule and rules just slow us down. So we have here two problems. One which should be very obvious is rushing. Rushing down a highway at break neck speeds isn’t safe so why in the world would it be safe while doing break neck speeds on a much more complex “highway” with a much more complex machine with the added lives on board the aircraft? Well it isn’t safe, but these few people get away with it time and time again creating another problem… complacency. Complacency just plain kills people because it makes room for surprises and surprises aren’t what you want on lets say a “hard IFR” day with a tired crew. Forget hard IFR, it can get you on a beautiful VFR day too. The next problem is the attitude towards rules. This specific attitude is classified as “Anti-Authority.” To make this attitude even worse is the offender gets away with it over and over again. Mainly due to the fact that a new green FO wouldn’t dare challenge the offending Captain and the fact that most commercial operations don’t have some sort of on-board surveillance (that’s a whole other topic…) make this attitude an easy one to adopt.

Why are we as pilots “rushing” so much? Well let me first bring up an interesting point which some may agree with and others may not. This whole SOP thing really becomes in my mind a major issue at the Air Taxi/Commuter level, the further up the line you go (i.e. big tin) the less of this you’re likely to see in such obvious ways. First things first. A quick definition of the two

Air Taxi:
1. Maximum Certified Takeoff Weight MCTOW of 19,000 LBS or less
2. Seating Config (excluding pilots) of nine (9) seats or less
Air Commuter
1. Multi Engined Aircraft with a MCTOW of 19,000 LBS or less
2. Seating for 10-19 (excluding pilots) or;
3. Turbo-jet with with a MZFW of 22,680 LBS or less

Hopefully with that definition you can plainly see I’m talking about smaller operators who operate smaller aircraft. We’re not talking about A320s here.

So why are we rushing??? Well it starts on the ground. The problem can be slow ground crew, mis-communications between staff on the ground and the flight crew, passengers showing up at the last minute and cut-off times not being adhered too etc, etc.. If you’re late on the ground, your day can be shot so to speak from that point on. A big problem with pilots when they have a long schedule for the day and only so many legal hours fit that day in. The more mileage a pilots piles into a day, the better his cheque will be. So it’s not just a bunch of rebels out to break the rules for the fun of it, they have a reason. So corners start getting cut to save on time and keep the money flowing in.

The solution to the ground problems which in a pilots mind come down to the ground crew, is training. The problem with training is the expense a company makes to have this training done for people who are often only there for a short time. When I say training, I mean training in all aspects of the operations. Most pilots understand the cargo side of things because they themselves have had to do this. Yet, most, if not all, cargo handlers don’t understand the flying side of the business unless they themselves are pilots working their way up the ladder. Counter staff or agents have no understanding of the cargo problems that handlers have to deal with except on a basic level, and furthermore have no idea of the flying side. They’re kind of “twice removed” from the big picture. If you ask most ground staff for example what a duty day is for a flight crew member, most would look at you dumb-founded and probably ask you what a duty day is? Something as simple as knowing that a 14 hour duty day is standard for flight crews would help ground staff make sure things were done in a more timely manner. I don’t think most people who work on the ground understand just how difficult it can be for crews to meet the fast turn-around times at each stop on a scheduled flight. We’re not talking 30 minute stops. We’re talking 15 minute stops at the most and that starts from the very second the wheels touchdown to unloading passengers and baggage and reloading new passengers and bags along with new manifests. 15 minutes!! You’re average stop takes about 1-2 minutes to shut down and open the doors from the time they touched down, another 5-10 minutes to unload and reload, and an additional 1-2 minutes more to taxi out and take-off. That’s all if there is no delay. In that example you have a 1 minute buffer zone on a 15 minute turn-around. One minute may seem long holding your breathe but it’s a pretty brief period of time. It can take multiple “rushed” stops to catch up 5 minutes lost in delays from the original point of departure. It’s not all ground staff though, passengers create a big problem in the fact that they aren’t as reliable as we would like. I think sometimes with smaller operations passengers often don’t realize that scheduled operations actually have a schedule to follow. Staff often feel the pressure to hold a flight up while waiting for that one passenger that’s going to make the rest of the day miserable if they find their flight departed without them. Along with that, smaller operations depend on the market of people they have, and making them upset isn’t a good way to keep them. This in my mind could be avoided if from day one we were to stick to policy (such as a 20 minute cut-off period.) Regular passengers would know that an early check-in was mandatory and in the end served them well. After all, waiting for one or two people holds up the ones that are there and ready to go, those waiting can get just as upset, trust me I see it often. At the end of it all, those who get the last glimpse of the angry or frustrated passenger aren’t ground crew. It’s the pilots. We board them angry, and de-board them while they’re still fuming. We usually get the blame. So the pressure lies with the pilots more so in ways than it does with the ground staff. We can make it go “higher and faster so do it damnit!” The end result is often a tired crew trying to accommodate passengers by still getting them there on time even if the flight was held up 20-30 minutes. Actually all it takes is 5 minutes and unfavorable in-flight winds to make a good day get ugly, never mind tossing in bad weather too.

Another solution to this could also be simply taking the pressure off of the pilots to pile in so many miles per day. Companies do try and make this happen by giving a base pay per month, but it often isn’t enough to make ends meet. The single pilot probably will do O.K. Throw in a family and mortgage and you have yourself some pretty big pressure to do as much as you can in a short amount of time. I won’t even begin to dive into that solution because I just simply don’t know what a company could do. They could increase the base pay I suppose, but hey the companies have bills to pay too.

Organization is key to all aspects of an operation to keep things on schedule. With the advanced technology now available to dispatchers and counter staff, etc.. you would think this would fix everything. It helps big time, but it can be expensive and hard for a small operator to implement. The company I work for is now in the process of putting a system like this into place. It takes time though, and that after all is something if you remember, we’re always pressed for. The time it takes comes from seeing the system being implemented properly. You can have a “system” that’s inaccurate and actually slow you down to the point where you pray for the old system back. A poorly implemented system can set a company back further than it was originally and that’s just no good!

So if things are rushed but schedules need to be adhered too, and systems are expensive and costly to implement then how are we going to fix this? I think one thing that would be good to see is some standardization to all operators in how they approach these problems. Well thought out standard systems and training for all operators and the staff that operates under it would make a big difference in my mind. I’m talking big league integration between departments for the little guys. Longer turn-around times and a buffer for the inevitable delays would help too. No one wants to see government come in and take over and that’s not what I’m suggesting but certainly some input wouldn’t hurt. The biggest solution which I have no idea on how to achieve, would be to remove the rushed attitude in general. We’re so used to our “pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free” world. Everything in life seems very rushed and it’s not getting better. We’re trying to develop more ways to go even faster and faster.

So just how much faster can we go? Not much. We need to learn how to slow down and pay attention to the organization of things around us and to adhere to rules put in place for our own safety. This is very important in all things, but the mass transportation industry needs this in a most severe way. In most cases when something goes wrong in an aircraft people don’t walk away hurt, they’re carted away in a bag. When the day is done and the investigation is over you’ll see two things for the most part. Either a system was poorly implemented or standards were not adhered too and people paid the ultimate price. This could be maintenance related, pilot related, ground crew related, etc, etc. When people do adhere to the standards the result is often a good one, or at the very least the best possible outcome for a given situation, and that’s why those standards are there. It’s when people start straying to far from the proven ways to deal with problems or avoid them that we see the ugly side of things appear.

So I hope I’ve shed some light on the whole situation. At the very least it’s my opinion and I’m glad to have it out there. I’ve certainly come up with no over night fix. The problem is inevitable but being aware of it is important. Knowing that being precise and safe takes organization and care, and that error needs very little room to operate in is key to being safe. Having a greater respect and understanding of procedures is also important. It might even be necessary to see bigger repercussions to those who break these standards.

In the meantime knowing the problem exists will have to do. My hats off to those who strive to follow these standards no matter what each day. For those who turn there nose up to the rules, I hope it doesn’t get anyone hurt.