The Qantas Pilot Safety culture is something worth fighting to protect. I read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers whilst on board a Qantas flight recently. While Qantas itself isn't mentioned in the book, a footnote listed Australia as having the 2nd lowest Pilot Power-Distance Index (PDI) in the world. New Zealand had the lowest. The entire chapter "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes" is the strongest argument I've seen which explains the Qantas safety record. The experience of pilots and relationships amongst the entire air crew is a crucial differentiating factor. Other airlines work hard to develop this culture, often needing to work against their own cultural patterns to achieve it. At Qantas, and likely at other Australian airlines too, this culture is the norm.
I want Australian Qantas Pilots flying Qantas planes. I'd like an Australian in charge too.
If you too support Qantas Pilots - go to their website, sign the petition.
Do your own reading.
G.R. Braithwaite, R.E. Caves, J.P.E. Faulkner, Australian aviation safety — observations from the ‘lucky’ country, Journal of Air Transport Management, Volume 4, Issue 1, January 1998: 55-62.
Anthony Dennis, What it takes to become a Qantas pilot news.com.au, 8 September 2011.
Ashleigh Merritt, Culture in the Cockpit: Do Hofstede’s Dimensions Replicate? Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, May 2000 31: 283-30.
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