Protect them and see through the marketing. People in aviation can look after themselves. Not really bothered about them. Its the normal familys who don't have a clue about aviation who only want the best for there child and are putting the entire familys capital on the line. Potentially stopping a sibling from further education due to servicing the pilots debt to stop the family house being lost.
What utter drivel! People in aviation aren't normal families? Don't want the best for their children? Other people are far too stupid (when they make the same decision) and lose the family home? Do you honestly wrap yourself up in the cloak of this nonsense? Of the 21 people I have been following over the last 2 years only two have one or more parents "in aviation" the rest have parents in a range of occupations, and in at least one case, have saved up for the monies they have invested.
But you still haven't dealt with the fact you have zero clue what my market is like or for that matter how much movement there is. I see and hear the movement and have to train them coming online
That is because like most of your "facts" it isn't a fact at all. Recruitment for the last thirty years (and beyond) has traditionally been from from the recognised sources of supply. They are military pilots transitioning to a civilian career. They are self improvers moving up through the tiers. Those tiers being aerial work occupations such as flight instruction, air taxi, corporate, small regional air transport companies, third and second tier airlines.
Fast track approved courses of training into cadet courses at the first tier airline companies. Each of these sources, have to varying and changing degrees, provided the tributary sources that in sum total satisfied the recruitment needs of the major airlines.
Over the last decade and a half, there has been a dynamic change in the both the flow of these tributaries and in the use of them. The biggest change has been effected by the growth of the "lo-co" sector. This sector of the market needed well trained
ab-initio First Officers, where the demand/supply curve reduced the input cost. It found the solution in the integrated cadet programmes which in turn expanded to satisfy a far greater percentage of the overall employment market than had ever historically been the case. That expansion continues apace and has now permeated through the charter airlines, hybrid scheduled/charter airlines, and into the legacy scheduled airlines (where it had been conceived in the first place.)
Economic realities over the last decade have seen a contraction or general restraint in much of the European and North American markets and a rapid growth in some Middle Eastern and Far Eastern markets. Faced with downward pressure on terms and conditions in these former markets, there has been a dynamic movement of labour flow into the latter markets, thereby reducing some of the oversupply that would by default have resulted in an even worse situation had that not been the reality.
Contraction of numbers as a result of "greater efficiencies" has resulted in the military transition(ers) representing perhaps the smallest percentage of supply than has ever historically been the case. Nevertheless it is still viewed as an exceptionally high quality source, and some airlines maintain either specific or general programmes to take advantage of that supply source.
In the "self improver" market, there have been major changes that have directly affected the "stepping stone" opportunities. There have also been major changes that have distorted the perception of this market. Firstly those traditional "aerial work" jobs that were once the stones that those starting out cut their teeth on, (instructing being the prime example,) have been victim to the general recession. Whereas once such jobs were "stepping stones"
to a commercial pilots licence, now they are "stepping stones" that
require a commercial licence. This is because of regulatory changes that made this licence (in the UK) an "aerial work" licence rather than the career licence that it had been previously viewed as. The natural attrition that once occurred en-route to that licence, was now transferred to the post acquisition period. The old "700 hour" licence became the new "250 hour" licence, with a whole generation of people and flying schools happy to promote the idea nothing had changed and this was the new "bargain route" to becoming an airline pilot.
Coupled with the economic downturn, so the general aviation demographic also changed. Market segments such as "air taxi" all but evaporated. Airlines that had once operated across a wider market (including small/medium turboprops and larger jets) focused on the more profitable sectors of their business, often divesting themselves of the smaller parts of their businesses to separate companies who specialized in those markets. The whole industry became leaner and meaner, and those sectors that didn't went to the wall.
So there evolved an industry where the top has an oversupply of experienced pilots (often working in overseas markets and thereby masking the supply pressure.) You have a ready supply of cost effective recruits taking the
fast track (cadet) programmes into the right hand seat of the first and second tier airline companies. You still have the (much smaller number of) military career changers competing for the few opportunities available. Then you have the self improvers who have paralleled the cadet training routes seeking to take up the opportunities that open up in the
fast track routes from time to time, as well as other opportunities generally. Then you have the armies of self improvers, the huge bulk of supply, who have availed themselves of the new 250 hour "aerial work" CPL/IR, wondering where all the airline jobs are? As reality sets in, they wonder where all the turboprop jobs are? As reality deepens they wonder where all the corporate jobs are? Then the bush pilot, instructing and general aviation jobs? Then anything, anywhere? So when you say:
But you still haven't dealt with the fact you have zero clue what my market is like or for that matter how much movement there is.
I would suggest that yet again you are wrong. The market for pilots is something I have been discussing on these forums for years. They are observations of reality and not my opinions or my wishful thoughts. The higher up the tree, the better the panorama with which to make those observations. One day you will realize that yourself.
I would like to say that your spelling and grammar belies the strength of your argument, but sadly I am afraid it doesn't. You are too narrowly focused on one issue and refuse to see the much bigger picture for what it really is, or what you would want it to be. The panorama is there for anybody to see if they climb high enough and open their eyes. I am happy to describe it and invite others to look for themselves. I would respectfully suggest that if people need "protecting" they start off by doing just that.