I think we are all missing an important point. Sure, Ryan is full of BS. But as every pilot that can tell a good 'war story' should know, a believable story has just enough truth in it to make the BS sound reasonable.
Where is the truth in what Ryan said? The world is changing. Damn right.
And the industry cannot look back at the '60s to '80s and say - thats how to do it. Because those days are gone.
However, to have pilots that can fly aeroplanes, controllers that can sequence, engineers that can fix, you need trained, experienced people.
There are other industries that compete for talent. If aviation looks like a dinosaur industry with shrinking benefits the young kids entering will dwindle away. So there will be demand for our skills.
What WE have to wise up to, is the new way of doing business, and shape it. We need to wise up to the fact that airline companies or groups do not stay in business for decades anymore. We need career structures that are not dependent on one company that wont stay in business.
Just to throw ideas around -- what if the union was an employer, a big labour hire company like PARC etc but had pilots on permanent hire. Salary, superannuation, travel, insurance, etc. Then they hired you on short or long term assignment to airlines. Just an idea off the top of my head.
Ryan is right in many ways. The world has changed. Time we changed our structures and tactics and used our in-demand skills as leverage to 'ride the wave' rather than be Canute ordering the tide to abate.
We are supposed to be really smart people, hey we can fly aeroplanes -- why not be clever industrially and career wise as well and re-write the book to suit us? It doesn't even have to be adversarial, why not lead the companies in a new direction?