Higgins,
". . . that we see a decline in standards throughout the industry."
Surely you would agree that a decline in standards is something the regulator must address. Dont you really mean that we have seen a ". . . decrease in applicant experience levels historically found in the Australian airline industry". The two issues are very different, the latter being a direct result of the boom occuring in the airline industry downunder. Australia has yet to lose a passanger in an airliner jet despite almost a decade of "declining standards". Even with the "decrease in experience levels", Australia STILL has some of the highest experience requirments in the industry.
Stevie G,
Your little example of how pilots are apparently providing thier skillset to their employer for free has little to do with the reality of the business world. Airlines are known to remove magazines from aircraft to save a poofteenth of a cent per seat mile but you seem to think that reducing the wages bill by tens of millions of dollars per year is somehow not worth consideration?
"So all in all, in a capitalist system where supply and demand are key, when supply of pilots is down and demand is up ..... their price should rise .... unless you don't believe in capitalism."
I believe in capitalism very much. But you appear to be a little confused. Your last sentence appears to indicate that you understand the dynamics of supply and demand, the very core of capitalism. And yet the bulk of your post is centred around support for an organization designed specifically to protect you from the vagaries of these market forces and to provide impediments to true market capitalism.
Holic and nothingondaclock,
Market capitalism does not mean to suggest a new era of "individual contracts". Airlines operating in genuinely free labor markets, where market forces are virtually the only driving force behind pilot salaries, still generally use one contract for all similar piloting positions. I dont recall hearing of Jetblue pilots all scrambling to sign up to 3000 different employment contracts, for example.