Narrative:

After self-training myself and first officer in an unsuccessful attempt to gain proficiency with the new airline transition procedures on the first leg of this two day trip; last night we were presented with an airplane with the previous air carrier flight manuals. As soon as I discovered the old flight bags; I called the flight duty manager and asked for guidance; do we fly as the merged airline's pilots or as our previous carrier's pilots? She said we need to fly as our previous carrier's pilots since we had an airplane with the old materials. She then cautioned me to ensure that the airplane actually had two flight bags that were identical; because she had recently handled a call where the airplane had one of each carrier's bags! I asked her to confirm that after all that work and on gate delay I took the other night to learn the new merged procedures; that we were then supposed to forget all the new flows; go-around profile; flight manual structure etc; and try to remember how to fly the old way? She said yes. She was very apologetic and said to take all the time I needed to ensure that my first officer and I were comfortable before we flew. She also suggested I write an report about the situation. I told her that I would but that reports don't seem to change anything. We then pre-flighted the airplane then got out the flight manuals and reviewed all the old way of flying that we had tried so hard to forget in our vain attempt to learn the new way of flying the night before. This delay was less than the night before; only 24 minutes spent sitting at the gate with the doors closed and people left sitting there wondering why nothing was happening. You see; I got smart this time and told the passengers nothing. Not a word; there was no way I was going to subject myself to the grumbling and complaints like the night before. I normally like to keep my passengers informed; but no longer. Why should I? Now back to my point about the duty manager agreeing with me and why that is so troubling. I believe this duty manager is typical in that they believe what is happening is wrong; but still they go along with whatever the new senior management dictates. In my vain attempts to get extra training prior to the phase 2 effective date; each of the five managers I spoke with acknowledged the deficiency of the system; yet kept right on participating in the charade. I fully believe the FAA should remove the current poi and conduct a complete re-evaluation of the company's whole program. But that assumes FAA organization doesn't have the same problem! Will FAA and the administrator allow all airlines to train pilots to the 'working knowledge' standard? I cannot find a definition for the term 'working knowledge' mentioned anywhere in the far's or airman's information manual. Does anyone but me think it is completely ludicrous that I have been forced to fly using the new procedures without real training; then forced to forget them and fly the old air carrier way; only to be faced with more self-training next weekend as I am forced to fly the the merged carrier's way once again? More importantly will anything change? I doubt it. Really I do. The system is obviously broken.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B757 Captain discovered during preflight that his aircraft had pre merger flight manuals but the pilots were now trained to fly using post merger procedures. The Duty Manager said to fly the pre merger procedures with pre merger manuals.

Narrative: After self-training myself and First Officer in an unsuccessful attempt to gain proficiency with the new airline transition procedures on the first leg of this two day trip; last night we were presented with an airplane with the previous air carrier flight manuals. As soon as I discovered the old flight bags; I called the Flight Duty Manager and asked for guidance; do we fly as the merged airline's pilots or as our previous carrier's pilots? She said we need to fly as our previous carrier's pilots since we had an airplane with the old materials. She then cautioned me to ensure that the airplane actually had two flight bags that were identical; because she had recently handled a call where the airplane had one of each carrier's bags! I asked her to confirm that after all that work and on gate delay I took the other night to learn the new merged procedures; that we were then supposed to forget all the new flows; go-around profile; flight manual structure etc; and try to remember how to fly the old way? She said yes. She was very apologetic and said to take all the time I needed to ensure that my First Officer and I were comfortable before we flew. She also suggested I write an report about the situation. I told her that I would but that reports don't seem to change anything. We then pre-flighted the airplane then got out the flight manuals and reviewed all the old way of flying that we had tried so hard to forget in our vain attempt to learn the new way of flying the night before. This delay was less than the night before; only 24 minutes spent sitting at the gate with the doors closed and people left sitting there wondering why nothing was happening. You see; I got smart this time and told the passengers NOTHING. Not a word; there was no way I was going to subject myself to the grumbling and complaints like the night before. I normally like to keep my passengers informed; but no longer. Why should I? Now back to my point about the Duty Manager agreeing with me and why that is so troubling. I believe this Duty Manager is typical in that they believe what is happening is wrong; but still they go along with whatever the new senior management dictates. In my vain attempts to get extra training prior to the Phase 2 effective date; each of the five managers I spoke with acknowledged the deficiency of the system; yet kept right on participating in the charade. I fully believe the FAA should remove the current POI and conduct a complete re-evaluation of the Company's whole program. But that assumes FAA organization doesn't have the same problem! Will FAA and the Administrator allow all airlines to train pilots to the 'working knowledge' standard? I cannot find a definition for the term 'working knowledge' mentioned anywhere in the FAR's or Airman's Information Manual. Does anyone but me think it is completely ludicrous that I have been forced to fly using the new procedures without real training; then forced to forget them and fly the old air carrier way; only to be faced with more self-training next weekend as I am forced to fly the the merged carrier's way once again? More importantly will anything change? I doubt it. Really I do. The system is obviously broken.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.