Bindair Dundat
The point of the thread is the way aviation is hell bent on decimating the piloting profession. No other industry treats it's employees with quite as much contempt. Everyone expects layoffs. No one expects all jobs to be saved in the context of COVID. When mass layoffs hit other industries there are all kinds of supports and concessions for retraining and considerations for the lives that are being upended. In an industry where people are literally trusting their lives to the people up front, it's startling to me that people are treated with such disregard. The industry was broken before, COVID put it into very sharp focus.
As others have said, Flight Crew are highly specialised people - like Doctors - they cannot readily transfer to other lines of work. Normally they have to find something entirely different to do and, given that millions of others are currently having to do the same ... I do understand this. My nephew became a Senior Second Office with a national airline (not in the UK) and, aged about 40 when he was looking for further promotion - his otilith organ failed in one ear and he lost his medical. End of career. All he had wanted to do from the age of 12 - gone, overnight. His insurance paid out but that does not cover another 20 years of working life. They had to downsize their house and his wife went back to work.
Further, you say, "No other industry treats it's employees with quite as much contempt." Having spent 27 years in corporate life - I disagree! Myself and my friends and family have been subject to constructive dismissal, redundancy at zero minutes notice, being lied to by men and women in suits, being sidelined for promotion (ask women and people of colour about this) and, on one famous day: I was due to take a posting with the company overseas and it was widely known. I had been back and forth to NYC, the company had arranged an apartment for me and secured my USA work Visa. Three hours before my leaving party - I was told that the deal was off. Nothing else, just stay in the old job with everyone knowing you wanted to leave.
Chiefttp
After all, if what you say comes to pass, nobody will have money to buy their products. Friends I know in financial circles believe that Real Estate, especially commercial real estate will be affected, but the financial foundation of the markets and banking is still very strong (in the US) He even mentioned a better quality of life for working folks who are embracing telecommuting as a new normal. Time will tell.
I have tended to prepare for the worst and, to blow my own trumpet: I saw the 1989/91 recession and made plans to 'duck' but corporate business did otherwise - twice, the first being the NYC story above. So I lost a lot. I saw the DotCom bubble but was not invested in that market so that was OK. I saw the 2008 crash coming and was ready and able to withstand that, however, it was apparent the the financial system was not changed in any significant way - mainly because politicians do not like to send their friends in the City to jail! So I was ready and prepared for the next financial crash and saw it brewing in 2018 (as mentioned above) and started to prepare for it. I have been expecting the Pandemic for a long time, it was only a question of when. Unfortunately for the world, Covid 19 arrived just at the time that the market was ready to pop and people were thinking that things were going well.
nolimitholdem
The fact is no one knows where the world, or the industry will be by Christmas, let alone 2024.
Yes, I agree but look at history. Look at the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, 9/11 and consider how much more connected we are by jet engines and telecommunications. Everything that happend in the past will happen again but BIGGER and longer lasting. It will happen because we know that humans do not learn from the past. The last six months have already shown that the USA and UK (and others) have learnt nothing from the past or the present.
Many companies can plan a one year life cycle. Vehicle manufacturers have to plan for five years, the airline world (makers, finance and operators) have to work at 15 years or more. Since they have all got used to steady expansion since the arrival of the 747, they have had 50 years of steadily increasing money. Now they have had to stop overnight. No company can do that in a nice way. So I am saddened about the way the airlines are treating all their crew and staff - but it is was corporates do.