All large flag carriers have em. And here at home you have qantas and the old MBA cadet program. Ansett had em too. The problem we face is not that cadets can't fly or shouldn't fly. Look at the experience left in GA. I wish I was exposed to the starting opportunities of now when I was washing airplanes at high school, and flying an hour when I earned financially doing something else for about 10 hours of wages. I took ages to save up and I reckon I spent probably $20000 over my career on training to date, and I am at ATPL level. Not to mention the shonkey operators, love em or hate em, you learn what not to do. Sink or swim. You just learn to survive, in the airplane and financially. Todays pilot doesn't get that, charactor building.
When an airline job was so far away, and you had to get that first job, mostly for free, in some sh#t hole, then you got onto a twin, still in some sh#t hole, then just maybe someone you know might recommend you to a small regional. Remember Oxley Airlines outa Port MacQuarie. Bless their hearts. Look what it is now.
Today, anyone gets a look in at terms and conditions, as crappy as they are post 89, that generations of pilots have battled for. We have ourselves to blame, partially, but the last government stitched up the pinacle of sh#tness with "You must sign this to be employed" AWA's with spineless unfairness tests.
Cadets, most of em, don't know that they are supporting the pay your way aviation career. They believe is a fast track to a good job and to avoid the harder GA work. Setting the standard for us who have earned the right over the years to enjoy the T's and C's of our forefathers. Its tough times for all operators with fuel prices, but they are creating their own problems with pilot shortages, and blaming everyone but them selves. T's and C's / T's and C's.
Having said that.
I trained cadets of the new age MBA scheme, and they do come out good pilots. Its like a blank canvas, and they are of a standard where should be a great training ground for better things. But short of getting banned from this forum in a business close to its owners heart, these days its just not necessary to do a self funded cadet program. Airlines short of employing expats, will take low to no timers. Making for most airlines, a single pilot environment whilst training, if things were to go wrong, in airplanes and check lists that require 2 pilots exist. Long days with trainees that a long time ago, would be there to assist the captain, nowadays are just a strain, until ready to fulfill their title, because its nearly an ab-initio environment because they don't have the experience to call upon. The day seems long rare where a trainee would come from a decent background of diversity, and humble beginnings, and offer the environment some experience. Experience comes not of doing the same thing, the same destination,with the same crew, same same same, for 10000 hours. It comes from life outside the box. When you fly a 182 in the bush, a baron into monsoonal community, a metro carrying maximum permitted defects on an RNAV approach to circle at minimas that you had to juggle payloads on 7 sectors with fuel stops, with one shot at a water meth take off, only to break down somewhere, and extend your duty through midnight with an exhausted FO. And heaven forbid getting laid off with wife and kids and mortgage's in toe. I can't imagine why pilots leave crap money when they can as they get experience and chase better paying jobs. Throw into that the price of living, petrol, and interest rates.
We can bitch all day, but the truth is that this "IS" the future, a plan for a long term future, and is no way a fix for the hear and now. For there will be no future for companies who don't invest in their own future, beyond us hear and now-ers. All we can hope for as divided pilots, married and stable or not, is that external elements force new pilots not to bother, and for the squeeze on the purse strings of the parked operators, outweighs the price of parking them by paying just a little more than the 3rd world mentality wages, vs the loss of static displays burning up ramp charges.