Originally Posted by
glekichi
Thread drift, but that is just blatantly wrong. Tonnes of pilots move between airlines within Japan.
I think jrmyl was referring to the Japanese legacy carriers. Unlike the United States where in times of high pilot demand (like now) pilots are continuously jumping from United to American to UPS, in search of not commuting, better quality of life, better insurance, better retirement, better looking uniforms or whatever. That doesn't happen with the Japanese legacy carriers. As you said that "Tonnes of pilots move between airlines in Japan" that might be true at the Skymark, Air Do and Star Flyer, but that doesn't happen at the legacy level like in the United States. You will not see any Japanese pilot that started with JAL or ANA right out of high school, all of a sudden jump to Peach because he or she would rather be based in Kansai. That just doesn't happen (unless that person lose their job for some reason) like it is happening here in the US now a days.
People here in the US are leaving, FedEx to go to Delta, and leaving Southwest to go to UPS in search of the proverbial greener pastures. It is as green as it will get in Japan working for JAL or ANA.