It seems that the EU has a lot to answer for here - but not intentionally.
The free movement of workers between EU states continually fuels the fire of the airlines' demands for labour.
What would the situation have been I wonder if the major low cost carriers had depended upon a native market for pilots rather than the far more substantial European one?
The idea of Europe might be a 'level playing field' for employment, but, due to an ever wider divergence in economic expectations between workers in the Member States the playing field is becoming far from 'level' insofar as labour availability and cost is concerned to the enormous benefit of the airlines.
Whether, for many reasons, this situation is sustainable or whether it is an opportunist 'crop' which the airlines are reaping in the short-term only time will tell.
I don't know of any other industry where such an exploitation of labour is taking place and it seems to fly in the face of all the toil and tears expended over the years in obtaining rights for the workers, certainly in the UK.
I am by no means a 'Union Man' but it seems it becoming a free market without the 'controls' evident in other industries.
Maybe there is no end to it and this is the way it is going to be in the future?
It is one thing having 'flexible working' but quite another when this turns into exploitation.
With the current Jet2.com recruitment drive it seems everyone is jumping on this particular 'Bandwagon'.
KR
FOK
PS: I suppose the flip side is whether, without the EU, there would ever have been the upsurge in low-cost airlines?