I think that it is high time that we limit pilot numbers in Australia the same way Uni student numbers are limited to courses like Medicine, Law, Engineering, etc. etc. etc.
There is simply too many pilots in this country to be employed. Flying schools continue to churn out new wannabes with the big lie that they will all get a job and have a great chance of fulfilling their dream of an airline. Nothing could be further from the truth. Odds are well and truly against said pilot achieving this goal. Some will get there but most won't.
If numbers were limited by regulation, the prostitution across the industry that keeps conditions for most pilots to range from anything between appalling to not comensurate for the qualifications, technical training and skill that is required for a pilot (let alone the investment a pilot needs to make to reach those same aspects!!!) would eventually cease.
CASA show no interest in these issues. It is clear that the regulator believes that there is no correlation between pilot pay and safety otherwise they would have acted years ago.
I believe that no real changes will be manifest in this industry until the operators are in the position that they have to beg pilots to work for them rather than the other way around as it is today.
If pilot numbers were strictly limited (matching closely what the demands will be industry wide), we would in time see a radically different aviation industry.
What is lacking is the political will to do so. Faced with the cost of running numbers of flying training outfits out of business by limiting numbers is politically unsavory, but exactly what is needed for the aviation industry to prosper as a whole.
So, we professional pilots MUST unite (i.e. do something radically different to what we have traditionally done - climbing over one another) and get the message out there that wages and conditions in the aviation industry need a radical overhaul.
Unscrupulous operators need to be brought to account. Self-prostituting pilots need to change their ways. Pressure needs to be placed on both the Government and the Regulator.
Pilot representative bodies like the AFAP need to grow some balls and stand up for their representatives for a change instead of stuffing away union fees and doing nothing while the Rome burns.
Well done to Fiona and the ABC for putting this issue in the public spotlight.
I hope this causes the players in this industry to have a good hard look at themselves and take positive steps to see change.
Turbinejunkie :ugh