Better for whom?
In 1958 my parents purchased tickets on TCA from London to Vancouver, 24 hours for 400 lb Sterling. That is easily over $5000 today. My dad had a PhD in Chemistry and maybe earned 2500 lb/pa
Deregulation has worked for consumers. Flying is faster, more destinations, cheaper and safer. What is not to like?
Pilots may be earning less is relative terms, but they are still doing better than coal gas engineers who have no jobs. (In the 60's being a CE engineer was a licensee to print cash, then natural gas showed up and surprise.) Don't like it train and get into the next industry that is going up. It may come as a surprise to many but the airline business is not here to provide jobs for employees, it is there to create money for shareholders (not that is does a lot if that either).
Canadian consumers have always being screwed by the regulated airlines and the pilots on the right side of the blanket have being quite happy to be part of it. Do a search and you will find pictures of AC pilots picketing parliament to save the public from the terror of Wardair flying 747's.
AC still has a regulated mentality and I don't know whether to laugh or retch when I hear pilots talking about passengers being "our work"
Airline transport is a commodity, like cars, jeans and cell phones. Keeping Emirates out is nothing to do with fairness, it is everything to do with with keeping the competition out and prices high. Basically screw the majority to keep wages up for a small minority.
There are very few people in Canada whose livelihood is not being impacted by the world markets in some respect and we are all getting pinched from the miner to the autoworkers to the farmers. Why do airlines get a right to keep out the competition when no one else can?
20driver
PS - The WSJ had an excellent article about the golden age of aviation some weeks back. Seems it wasn't that great after all.