Ignition
Having flown for both an American part 121 airline and a few brithsh airlines I think that what you have to say about the crowded airspace has a lot to do with the degrading of skills however a lot of the new generation of pilots flight training has been via the JAA integrated course and the student has to pick up a $75,000 tab so the pressure is on to do the course with the minimum required time and so flying for practice is not encouraged or te student simply can't afford to do it.
The guy's then have to pay for the type airliner traninng and likewise that is done to the minimum standard with the minimum amount of time in the sim.
The JAA thinks that by insisting on approved courses and closely comtroled traininng that has someone into an airliner flight deck with only 250 hours real flying and one sim course that they are upholding flying standards when quite the opposite is true and to my deep dismay things are going to get worse with all the sim based training that the JAA propose.
In the old days the airlines paid for the lucky few (the very best people that they could get) to do the approved course and with 250 hours these people could probably fly the aircraft but the rest if us had to go the non-approved route and do 700 hours in light aircraft before a CPL was issued (we could instruct or glider tug on a PPL) this provided the airlines with pilots how had a lot of hand flying practice and had been "in comand" of an aircraft without too much outside supervision.
This situation did not put money in the hands of the big training companys so they put the pressure on the JAA to come up with the CPL/ATPL as we now have it.