Originally Posted by Nick Bradshaw

This is another huge problem. We are the only airline I've ever seen that briefs SOP. Everyone is trained on the basics of their job. The purpose of a brief isn't to remind them in case they forgot how to do their job properly, it's to cover extraneous circumstances that apply to a particular situation. "Standard brief plus the following threats" should be the format. It also isn't to "remind" the captain what he plans to abort for. If you need to brief yourself on the first flight of a rotation, because you somehow "forgot" what you should abort for, you don't belong in the seat.

When you make people drone on and on in a standardized briefing telling them how to do the basics of their job, they stop listening. Wasted effort. Opportuinity to trap errors gone. The FAs are well aware of Red/Yellow emergencies. They know how to contact Medlink. These are the basic functions of their jobs and they are drilled on it repeatedly. They don't need you to strut onto the plane and remind them for 10 minutes and insult their intelligence. The FO doesn't care what you're going to abort for. They simply call what they see and await your decision to continue or abort. They know how to handle a time/no time situation, because they're drilled on that. They know to put you on a 10 mile final and "tap you on the shoulder to bring you back in" at the marker. Stop saying dumb stuff because "that's how we've always done it" and LCPs stop teaching tribal knowledge. Put it in the manual or quit doing it.

Now let's talk about how dumb, antiquated, and ineffective WARTS/NATS is.