you are probably right to some degree it is a tuff business, years and years of commercial pressure, never knowing if you have a job tomorrow, flying with others who range from "feet putting to sleep" crew to outright ego maniacs!
I wonder if it is a perennial civilian airline flying issue?
I’d go so far as to say that because it’s such a brutal career to break into and progress in that it’s mainly those with traits of resilience, stoicism and robustness which survive long enough to accrue 10,000 hours.
Slight thread drift. I flew in the RAAF for 18 years before reluctantly leaving to fly civil. Reluctantly, meaning to avoid a succession of desk jobs. Those 18 years were enjoyable because the job was secure and I got free travel, board and lodging. The varied aircraft types were fantastic and all free.
Apart from one instructor when learning to fly, I don't recall any seriously objectionable personalities in the cockpit from Group Captains to lower ranks. Yet, for some reason, the people one sometimes flew with in the cockpit of airliners were different. Defensive, nit-picking autocratic and one was conscious of the ever present fear of failing a simulator session and thus a career jeopardized.
Strangely enough there were also former RAAF pilots who as airline pilots turned out to be autocratic pricks as they went up the food chain. I never knew why.