The last few responses have been good ones,but I fail to see the big deal in the DEC issue. If an airline can't get the supply that they need and they can't promote from within because people aren't ready( in management's view), they don't want to be promoted, or they have issues where they can't do training experiments on line flights and have incidents and accidents; then they have to hire from the outside. Most people from the outside have the T-shirt and they may or may not do better than promoting someone from within. But a proven track record speaks for itself. It's that simple. Most airlines today can't take adverse publicity nor the $$ cost of having incidents or accidents. This is true worldwide.
If you have a seniority system and a system where people get trained when your number comes up, it works reasonably well. But when you try to upgrade and fail, the downward spiral and the consequences are not pleasant.