Apart from the salaries ,FTLs,No longer final salary pensions,no crew meals,poor quality hotels,what else that has been discussed that I have missed????THE FLYING PART.I have thought of nothing but flying since I could read and write!My parents set up a farm in Kenya after the War,so I was brought up by my mothers Brothers Family.My Uncle Bert,was left out on a limb by my family,as he had "shirked the War".Yet he had an enormous amount of flying anecdotes and took me in a Proctor for my first flight in 1949 at White Waltham!!So what on eath was my family telling me about him.They all were dreadfully envious of him,as it happened.They had run an established family engineering business since 1910,and were adjudged to be "Reserved Occupation".My Uncle was not carrying the main family name,so was sidelined in the Company.In 1942,he joined the Empire Flying Training course in Canada and the US ,having enlisted in the RN,Air Branch.So he shirked the War,by not staying with the rest of them at home,but had gone to away and left the family to do his own thing and FLY for his country.He ended up in the Pacific,and instead of coming back home in 45,he was stuck repatriating POWs from India and Australasia until 47.When he did come back there were no jobs,certainly no flying jobs,so he was told he could only get a job working again for the family company,but in a reduced position!!His family ended up looking after my sister and myself,although we were all sent to boarding school at an early age.He took me to Farnborough every year until his untimely death,and introduced me to the Fairey Test Pilots Office and staff at White Waltham,because he knew them all,and was having an affair with peter Twiss's Secretary!!.Thus was started my lust for flying.I ended up with over 42 years of it,but having strugglled to get a Civilian licence in the late 70s with an Avigation Course on ERT-My wife telling me "I thought you were a Pilot,so wheres the job?"I only got the Licence by going to Oxford..To get a job,I had to go to Nigeria,and that was pot luck,as I knew the Deputy Chief Test Pilot from DeHavilland,and he got me a course and an intro into Exec Flying.As I had been a reaonable "Handling "Pilot,I thoroughly enjoyed the flying.I got an early command and in the 80s Airlines were recruiting,so I joined a superb Airline as Captain on a Turboprop.No Autopilt,Prop Synch,Cold cockpits,ADFs that had pencil marks to get the strongest frequency reception,and Training Captains that encouraged you to make the most money you could for the Company!There was an actual buzz to recover delays left over from previous crews.As Captain of your Aeroplane,Like a Ships Captain,you made the decisions,and could tell the Ground Handling and Refuellers exactly what the score was if they were causing totally uneccessary delays.Very little PC in those days,and the flying was superb!A typical approach into Guernsey,was to report IMC the North West tip of the Island,on Radar, descending to 1500 ft and request left base join to the ILS 5 Miles at 220 kts.We could land and disembark our 52 pax,before the BM or BA had made the marker from their 20 mile finals approach.When we got the Jets,this continued,until suddenly things changed,and new young bloods from the Big Airlines,arrived to get commands when they were still ten years away where they had come from.The ideas from the big Airlines arrived and PROFILES were to be the norm.The standard of our Crews was excellent,and anyone on line could fly to the standard set down by the bosses-All pilots themselves!The standard then was dropped to be able to cope with abinitio Airline Pilots with frozen ATPLs.These guys,not their fault,could not be expected to fly outside the tramlines,as laid down,as they could and would get into trouble without the experience to get themselves out of it-Their Captains were now the young bloods,but lacking years of experience.Going into Amsterdam for example,our Airline had "Bullet Crews"There used to be layers of Aircraft stacked at "Sugal",and as we were doingshuttle flights,the delays would snowball.Crews were encouraged to think on their feet.If the main runway was 19,we did an ILS to 27 and broke left on short final visual to land on 24,which had no aids.The Alpha and Bravo stands were dead ahead,so we more than made up times,and ATC actual asked if you could accept a " Bullet crew approach",meaning the break off for 24.Things began to change rapidly,and as we got more Jets,then more and more came from the main Airline as direct entry Captains with the same ideas-Standardisation on Profiles-"so help you GOD"!!No longer were the flights the same,and new first officers were actually asking why some of us were departing from the Profile to get the job done,when all we had to do was to claim the delay was an ATC problem.After trying to explain the delay snowball effecting to subsequent crews,the matter did not stop there,but went to the new Fleet Manager-A young blood.There is nothing wrong in standardisation,if the Beancounters,who are now running the Airline as the Pilot Management has retired or removed,are aware that now some delay problems can not be resolved and future delays to schedules are unavoidable.The old guys got pissed off,as the first excuse for a delay was taken with both hands by crews,and further delays would be inevitable,so why bother to be concerned about it??No one now seemed to think that PROFITS had to be made to keep you flying??Beancounters do though,and they continue to try by reducing the things that make flying tolerable under modern conditions-the Perks have been eroded to nothing!!You cant take the fuel you wanted!You have to go by the route given you,even if the have the Cockpit shattered by Hail and the leading edge drilled by a machine gun of hail stones.Things have really changed,but that is called progress.A very smart computer games kid will do a much better job than I could , flying his computer driven office from A-B without ever getting out of his locked in working environment.He will not be able to release his stresses as we could,and his socalled Flying Skills will have to be left to a little private aeroplane than he can hardly afford,to do proper flying.I am glad I am out of it,I am afraid, and I reckon I was 5 years too late in joining the Commercial Flying World.Those before me,enjoyed almost all their time,when Glamour was Glamour,and to be a Pilot was a respected profession.