There will be plenty on here who remember the days when you could see a fully armed Bucc out on the flightline and a spotty Flying Officer wandering out to strap in. It'll get to the point where someone just gets frontline and is then short-toured due to promotion to Sqn Ldr and sent off to fly a desk for "career enhancement".
Don't forget we are talking about government administration that can employ a contractor to run a ferry service when the contractor has neither any experience of doing so, nor has any actual ferries.