When I started in the 70s, the right hand seat was the dream job and the airline took care of everything.
My considerable experience since has been that, when the market is flourishing and there are plenty of spare pilots around who aspire to the dizzy heights of an airline job, airlines move the goalposts to increase their demands. Their attitude has always appeared to be that, because they are paying bigger salaries than the average, they are entitled to increase roster periods, max duty hours, forget holiday entitlements and rest time and hammer sh*t out of anybody daft enough to put up with it.
They no longer take responsibility for licence training, newly required type ratings or the necessity for a sensible family existence. THEY MILK IT.
Now the boot is on the other foot and young aspirants are realising that Airline Flying, per se, isn't all it is promoted to be. There are better jobs in the GA market for example, with better-equipped aeroplanes and less-demanding work profiles. The importance too of an apparently attractive airline salary is now less important than some semblance of a home life and a bit of leisure time. I remember being so shagged out at the end of a duty week that I needed just to sleep for virtually the whole rest period just to be fit to start, you've guessed it, on EARLIES again !
There was an occasion in the past that a "single" pilot had been rostered on virtually continuous earlies for SIX months and was then rostered for a very late finish immediately before an annual leave which, by the way, never included weekend days ! They had to be specially requested for a mid fortnight break and sometimes they were never available.
Oh, and just remember this all tends to be cyclical. And while there are shareholders, it will happen again !
BTW, my best pal became an aviation specialist barrister.
Did he envy me ? No. He bought himself a new Baron and flew into the sunset.............
