OK, on re-reading my post, it appears I came across as being a little too harsh. WWW, I was refering to your negativity about the low hour long haul pilots, and should not have criticised in such broad terms. My apologies.
However, this IS such a difficult industry to predict, and one can not say FOR SURE how and when it will pick up. I feel that there are a lot of positive aspects out there that we should also concentrate on, such as the vast number of pilots coming up to retirement (indeed, most of the "dozens and dozens" - 48 actually - of BACE flight ops redundancies will come from pilots retiring or moving over to the BA mainline fleet). Also, the fact that pax loads have not dropped off nearly as much as first feared should be cause for hope.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's great to ponder and try to predict the future, and your analyses are a fantastic read, but the fact is that NO ONE can do it! This is not a criticism, just a re-iteration, that the only certain thing in aviation is uncertainty!
