I hear ya boredcounter. However, the GPs in the UK all stuck together in the late nineties & under the Blair government, quite rightly, had significant improvements to their pay & working conditions. As you say there are now far more aircraft flying today than 'back in the day' so you would think that following the normal rules of supply & demand there would be a need for more pilots to fly the planes & hence our value should increase & not decrease. But it hasn't; & why? There are many reasons but IMHO the main one is that we are simply prepared to prostitute ourselves for a job. You are correct that we may be oversubscribed: still to the outside world a pilot's job may appear glamorous & therefore there are always those who want to get in on the gig, but then so is a doctor's or lawyer's job perceived to be high flying. I don't see their Ts & Cs declining as alarmingly as ours.
I used to work at Ryanair, based at Stansted, & we all know how often that airline's malpractices appear on this website but there is one thing that always strikes me: the biggest whingers, moaners & whiners, who today still put up with those conditions, are the very pilots that I used to fly with who happily ran along to pay MOL to fly his planes then happily accepted garbage conditions. They, & many like them, devalued the job. What did, or do, the unions do? Absolutely nothing apart from protect the top 10% of the pilot workforce on both sides of the Atlantic & turn a complete blind eye to this devaluation. What do the authorities do to maintain such basics as rest & safety? Nothing when those factors compete with commercial pressures (read profits). I honestly believe that the only reason the FAA has now started to make noises about these issues is because of the stand that Captain Sully has taken & Michael Moore's movie, & I'm serious: the publicity has shamed them into at least squawking
So when I see fellow aviators justifying the degradation of our lifestyles it just angers me as they are the core reason that we are on a slippery slope down.
I honestly don't believe that people should go straight from college to a pilot's career: we should all be forced to work in business first & then we might all be able to get a grip on the declining situation
