ummm, they're not eroding terms at the top - huge shortage Luke - I mean huge. Every one of the agencies is promising to love us long, long time and I know you will have been following the sagas of companies like BA and Emirates getting no shows.
However, it is screwing up to the first ten years or so of peoples' career when they have vast debts to pay off. It's also stopping us getting the previous leavening of experienced turboprop folks. The training load is vast and the system really is maxed out.
You know better than the vast majority here what it's like in a country with a vast oversupply of commercially rated pilots and what it does to the market.
The effect is now significant here as well - wanabees have often voiced what they see as 'decent' starting pay. Let's take 25K as a ball park figure. I've got the slips and tax documents to prove that was jet starting pay in 1989 and a North London 3 bed semi came in at around the mid sixties sterling.
Let's put that together - three years beginners' pay at the time was equal to a London house and the price of a new 3 Series to park in the driveway. If I made the comparison with reference to prices away from the south east of the UK you simply wouldn't believe me.
We have to let people know what they're getting into these days.
Regards again,
Rob