So what basically has happened is that someone found out that today`s airliners are so modern that to pilot one you do not necessarily need to ahve that many hours of flight time (in the air) as long as you can demonstrate that you can program the FMS and read checklists...
The airplanes fly themselves and can land themselves as long as they are progammed properly. So what you get is a young programmer with an interest in aviation. Sound slike a lot of guys in their early 20s
. You don`t actually need a commercial pilot since the aircraft are so highly advanced - at least the new production aircraft are.
But whatever happened to the "what if`s"? Remember those questions we got when doing our licenses? Is the level of automation so high that the need for a pilot (read; pilot, not programmer) is almost gone?
All this is fine and dandy until something hits the fan at Mach 0.8, or on short final for that matter, and you need a pilot with stick and rudder skills to pull it off.
My 2 cents.