I read this topic with slight amusement having flown for BA for almost 33 years. You would almost think that the pay is now worse than ever.............well for new joiners it's completely the opposite. The pay for BA is better than ever for those at the bottom of the seniority list. The demise of allowances and the taking up of FHR plus TAFB pay has greatly evened up the distribution of variable pay. It's actually never been better for DEP's.
Time to command is making me grin too. If most people have a 30 year career in BA then the average time to command over a long period of time will be 15 years. This goes up and down over the years. It only seems yesterday to me that command time in BA was around 17 to 18years. Then it suddenly got very junior with LGW commands and all of a sudden people are upset not to get a command within seven years!! The average time to command will be the average length of career divided by two. This will fluctuate during any DEP's time in the airline. Don't get focused on time to command........just grab it when ever you can.
Anybody would think that BA was in a financial mess from the posters on this forum. They are actually the world most profitable airline for the second year running. The loco's have stimulated demand and in the long term have done a world of good for all the airlines. BA had certainly got VERY bloated, we needed the kick in the arse that MOL and Emirates has provided. And to be fair we are getting there...........still lots of fat to be trimmed but not, I suspect, from the flight crew. We are flying up to the legal max and can do no more.
The big difference is the pension.........but to counter that you will probably have the chance to work till your medical runs out. I suspect most will boost their pension by extending their career with part time working.
Take a step back from the doom merchants. More money than ever is being pumped into aviation, the investment into the infrastructure is staggering. Air travel is going to explode over the next few decades. Huge planes and small planes are all going to need pilots and there simply is not an ever lasting supply. The next few years might be tough but long term it's looking better than ever. Certainly better than the 1970's when I started.
Aeroplanes are much easier to operate now when they work but much more difficult to manage when they don't, such is the benefit/disadvantage of becoming more complex. Pilots fly less so consequently actually have to be better than ever. It's much more imporatnt to have natural talent these days. When I started everybody got there in the end because we practised all the time. The quality of the guys entering the airline seems to increase every day dispite what us older chaps might like to think. It's fun to be around such quick thinking pro's even if you get frustrated whilst I try to keep up.
I suspect the vast majority who post here are not actually pilots. In my experience in the thousands of bars down route crews naturally gel and there is no anomosity between airlines. No the common enemy is always the "management" and the only competition as the beer flows is who has got the worst examples.