It's almost a guarantee that the job of flying will go the way of taxi drivers and locomotive drivers. The train drivers used to be one step below God himself back in those days, now not so much.
As aircraft get more sophisticated flying will become increasingly easier on the crew. At some point it will simply be too technical and controlled of an environment that "anyone" will do up front. We'll have clearances on-screen that only require you to push a confirm button, I don't think it'll be long before we have planes with 4 buttons. T/O, cruise, land and emergency. We're being squeezed out of the flight deck gents, that's the way it is. It'll get easier to fly, people will be prepared to pay less and less for it and new guys keep lining up around the block to sell their soul for a chance at work. Most John Does refer to pilots as "nothing more than bus drivers" anyway, soon enough they'll be right too. We can talk on and on about the human factor and safety, how some decisions need people's skills and nobody would ever fly planes without pilots but ultimately it'll be a self-serve machine in the back, and some low-pay techie on the flight deck who can push the override switch when the 8 independent control systems all fail at once. We're being invented out of our seats that's just a fact.
Combine this with declining salaries, benefits and job security of 5 years a pop, moving to a different country to support yourself, getting divorced, never finding the time to see your family. To be honest I'm starting to lose sight of what makes this job interesting to begin with. Then again, other industries seem much the same these days. Maybe we're just collectively shafted by the man
with longer hours and less to show for it. Not like the 50s when one parent could stay at home, could afford a home and a car on one pay check. Now you have to take out huge loans that many never repay, just to find a roof over your head.
Life was better in the old days eh
