good post NSF
A bit of thread drift here - but if this financial crisis has taught us anything it is that businesses should be run by people who actually have knowlege of the business, not some moronic MBA professional 'manager' (i.e administrator) who flits from one industry to another and sees only spreadsheets and costs, and knows nothing of how the business actually runs.
You want a successful airline - then let the pilots / engineers run it. not some idiot with an MBA.
FWIW My view is that in a world where middle ranking adminstrators get paid the sort of money they do (with zero personal risk), school teachers and train drivers get 50k+ and local council 'managers' get 6 figure salarys then an airline captains 'market rate' is into 6 figures, no questions.