One quick question: how many GA positions are there available today as compared to 10 years ago? How many FI(A)/MEP/B200/B1900 seats to be filled? Then compare it with the number of jet seats to be filled - 10 years ago and today.
I think you will find that on a European scale, the GA sector has slumped, while the LoCos have made the jet sector grow.
That means that from now on, there will be fewer and fewer of those who did it the hard way. Not that it's fair - I did my own stint in SEP/MEP/KingAirs and ATRs - but it's the only way that you can make up for the shortfall. When the LoCo sector is stabilised (in a few years time), the proportion of "hard workers" will grow again.
And don't forget, a lot of pilots are hired to airlines as BA, GB, BE, TC et al as cadets - but they don't pay for the typerating! So are these people jumping the queue as well? I think the two issues - of employing cadet pilots and paying for your own TR - need to be separated. You can have people with 250 hrs. flying the Bus with GB - and you can have 6000 hr. FIs paying their own TR to fly for EZ or FR. That does not imply that the Jerez-cadet in GB has jumped the queue - nor does it imply that the 6000 hr. FI was not good enough - he/she passed the skill test, the base training and the linecheck - so obviously they must be good enough to do the job, but maybe they were not so good at doing interwievs - and hey, we don't need people who are good at passing interwievs, we just need good airmen/women!
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