Hi Panama-Jack,
You're just about keeping this forum alive on your own, thankyou!,
Unfortunately I have not been of much help recently, eventhough I do like to engage in interesting discussions, it just seems that there is not much interest in discourse unless it is to slag somebody or something. If one tries to stimulate discussion on something aviation related it usually ends up being a one-post-topic. I know this is called a rumor network, but quite frankly I am too busy to waste my time on rumors that seem to have little basis in fact, instead I'd like to use this medium for communication among peers in a geographically widespread area but engaged in a global business were occurrences in a foreign country 2000 miles away can easily influence what is going to happen to your or my job next.
Which brings me back to your comment about the lack of interest in young people to become Pilots. You refer to the cost issue, which in my opinion is only half the story, clearly working conditions and remuneration for professional Pilots is at an all time low, that fact is not lost on intelligent youngsters. If they invest the same amount of dedication and perseverence that it takes to become an airline Pilot in another field of endeavour they will be much more successfull. That leaves us with the diehard aviation enthusiast, s/he will make a good Pilot and since there are relatively few of them, in due time supply of Pilots may be exceeded by demand and working conditions will improve. who knows? Then again, it won't be long now before they start mixing in some remotely controlled aircraft, first it will likely be package carriers and after some time, some marketing genius will propose a roundtrip fare to europe for $200 in something like an A380, where you will be joined by 800 other fun seekers and they will gurantee that the aircraft is controlled by experienced Pilots, they may forget to mention that said Pilots are not on the aircraft with you and that the same person will perhaps control 3 or 4 flights simoultenously from a desk on the ground. Then eventually, the whole relevance of flight training will be questioned, after all it seems to bear little relevance to the job, who needs flight training to "fly" a flight Sim on your computer right?
cheerful thoughts!
Fluf