Very interesting reading.
Quite comparative to the railways where I work at the moment.
Some train drivers spent 5-7 years getting treated like crap and being the bitch and sitting in the observers seat before they were allowed to touch the controls and nowadays you can walk in off the street and be taught how to do the job with no or little experience and sit in the drivers seat straight away and at my particular company be in charge of 30,000 tons behind you within 6-10 months. Of course this instantly gets these guys backs up and they don't see the positives but see all the negatives. However the business loves it because they can bring these people in on lower salaries and lower training giving the company the ideally molded employee.
Some very good arguments for and against why the cadetship is good and why it's bad. But I think it's to lower the conditions and it also allows the company to mould the employee they want. There's got to be something in it for Jetstar, it wouldn't make business sense not to have some sort of economical gain.
I do think it's great if you have the money and the time......but how you are going to pay 80k when your on a 60 what ever week course? and afford to live....seems pretty impossible to me, unless mummy and daddy are paying for it or you have a great bank manager who will let you get away with not paying the loan back for a year.
Personally I am in the process of building a house and I intend on borrowing against that and going for my CPL whilst I'm earning several figures then hopefully I'm able to go Fly in fly out and work 2 weeks up north and work 2 weeks flying for someone earning bugger all and pay for my life by working 2 weeks driving trains up north. Then eventually get into an Airline and take what is looking up to being a massive pay cut but I guess the things you do to follow your dream.