The end is not all that near, but...
As a newbie on this forum I felt that the posts to date have been accurate and kinda scary. I'm a yank and we have been having similar probs on this side of the pond. The only saving grace (although it scares the SH*T out of the airlines) will be the age 65 rule finally catching up with them. Then they'll have to start hiring and training folks at a rate that will make their heads spin and their balance sheets run red. They'll also have to bring back those incentives to keep folks on property, but they won't have a choice. No tricks no, exemptions, no exceptions.
Then and only then will all of these "nice people" start to feel our pain. What's more if the new FAA proposals finally gain traction at some point in time, even the regionals will not be able to go after any one out of flight shool or one of these training academies (which are as close as you can get to pay to play since a lot of them run these so called certificate factories) since the new hiring mins tack on the requirement for a boatload of hours and an ATP.
What happens on this side of the pond will ripple outwards (the airlines would have hoped that it was the other way around with some of the aforementioned cost cutting schemes currently in play in the EU) and its effects will be felt far and wide.
As of now we have deal with them having their boots on our throats. I'm a recent furloughee with a regional airline that was driven into chapter 11 by our management types (guess who was asking the bankruptcy court judge let them keep their bonses?).
Until then keep yer heads down and don't take any crap!