Beazle
"A couple of pilots of my acquaintance manage to run successful businesses in their spare time".
You may be the exception to the rule. The future for Pilots is part time jobs on full time pay, many are at that stage already. A pilot recently resigned from my airline for lifestyle issues and more time off with his family. The previous year he had 136 days off, 42 days leave of which 4 weeks was at the peak school summer holidays, 21 contactables (days off to the average pilot). That's over half the year off.
Maybe Mr Calder is referring to him, but when you compare that to Junior Docters, check in staff etc, you can perhaps see why Mr Calder may have got the wrong end of the stick?.