Aviation like any profession has all types. Over 25 years in the industry I have noted there are quality pilots in renowned airlines AND in 'lesser' airlines.
Invariably, the 'renowned' airlines put more emphasis on the types of individuals they want to have sitting in their cockpits. It is thus not by accident Cathay and Qantas (for example) have the high safety history they do.
Other airlines care little for whom they employ as long as they are cheap and thus assist company profitability. Myopically - a crash costs WAY more than the savings cheap labour brings. As per Kaptin M's comment, suggest your example of your former employer SIA is an unconvincing one.
It is of course not to be assumed that 'lesser' airlines employ only lesser pilots - many aviators for less prestigious airlines are excellent and only missed the majors by virtue of age, market timing etc.
Some claim they never wanted to fly for the majors for tax or other reasons and in certain cases this may well be the case. However there are individuals out there who for whatever reason were unable to be part of the majors and are bitter.
Sometimes that bitterness is natural but when it used to attack their peers, colleagues in the same industry it is a shame. In fact it is more than a shame. It is both pathetic and undermines professional pilots as a group.
411A, if you genuinely are a pilot (rolling in all that tax-free money you have enjoyed by working for lesser airlines) then your stance on most issues you comment on is shameful. Rather than your having fun winding-up a bunch of gullible internet-users, I rather think you are a sad and embitterd old man sitting there in the desert counting your money but angry at never having been accepted by your peers. You remind me of one of those psychotic American teens eagerly plotting the machine-gun demise of all those who prevented him joining the baseball team.
Whether you like it or not, the industry is now at a stage where professional pilots (by virtue of supply/demand and pilot shortage) are now at a point that they are able to recoup many of the conditions withdrawn in "harsher" economic times. Continuous undermining by individuals such as yourself (and those who refuse to join pilot unions but gladly accept the benefits those unions bring) does little to assist your peers. Perhaps unimportant to you but without those peers there would be no industry.
Ironically, just as you are about to retire with your money and bitterness, professional pilots are about to receive some of the biggest improvements in working conditions ever. United and AA are just the start and this must permeate through the industry.
Majors will recognise this and will simply adjust cost structures accordingly (otherwise they are out of business) - the undermining by the likes of yourself and upwardly mobile managers out to make a name for themselves will amount to little when airlines are fighting to attract quality aircrew and maintain reputations.
Those who chose attack their pilots conditions too severely (CX at present?) risk the entire future of their business.
So before the likes of yourself disappear into retirement oblivion perhaps you could do a JFK and "Ask not what have my peers done for me, but what have I done for my peers". Your record on this website gives you little to hold your head high.
Now perhaps you could go and hug a tree or something and bring out a kinder side in your personality (sorry no trees there - how about a cactus)!
[ 08 July 2001: Message edited by: Tom Tipper ]