"Yes and how many other professions require you to fork out 70K to gain your licence to operate and then fork out another 23K for your type rateing and all in order to earn a starting wage of @ 27K ? Thats if your lucky enough to get a job. Oh might as well add uni debt on top of that too."
quite a few actually. How much do you think it costs to become a lawyer or doctor these days? which is also why they earn so much. Broadly speaking in a free market how much you can earn is directly related to the difficulties and cost of entering the market.
I spent 30k on my training, and JennyB - apart from the fact you've obvioulsly got a huge chip on your shoulder about something - that was my money, not mummys or daddys, and yes I did work my nuts off for many years and take a few risks to earn that money.
If you want a safe, boring job with no risk of redundancy, no risk that relatively minor health problems end the career and no requirement to gain a demanding qualification first, fine, I've got no problem with that, but don't whinge then that your professions salary is somewhere towards the bottom of the pile.
As for the future, well it's easy to sit in the UK and suspect that the aviation industry with whither and die, however this obsessio with the environment, tax and rediculous security is ONLY in the UK. spend a bit of time pretty much anywhere else on the planet and you realise that the environmental issues are pretty much where they belong on the agenda, and the industry is thriving. We will always be in demand.
People like to moan about us, but when oxygen bottles punch big holes in the sides of aircraft, or the engines crap out over hatton cross, then they rather like the fact that there is a highly paid, highly trained professional sitting up the front.
Besides, at least all our salary comes from money earned in a competative, free market, and as such is beyond reproach, at least in economic terms. Save your villification for all those that "earn" (or should i say steal) considerably more than us with their snouts in the public purse.