What a feed from all quarters!
Streamline, you are truly an illiterate prig. I have to surmise that you are posting a wind up and aren't really interested in constructive comment.
Anti Ice, that was a nice throw-away remark at the end about mechanics holding our fate in their hands: they'd be worth the top rate if they took the machinery up and with skill of hand, agility of mind, knowledge of process and procedure and superb crew handling could produce results as seen in the Sioux City accident a few years ago.
In the military we do a job for a whole lot less than the commercial guys with quite a bit more risk. Some use this as a stepping stone to big money, but others are happy to continue without the cash, as it is very satisfying. The commercial sector has discrete stressors of long absences from home, a higher rate of flying across many time which is very fatiguing and a range of other issues that I don't profess to know lots about. Not least the responsibility of hundreds of pax down the back.
The world owes no one a living.