oicur12 - you suggest that concern about the importation of dodgy foreign pilots is akin to looking for commies under the bed. I'm not sure how you draw those parallels. Companies dearly love to use the threat or reality of importing pilots from places they come cheaply - however they usually come cheaply for a good reason.
To snigger smugly and infer that grave suspicion of CEO's motives is mere paranoia is sticking your head in the sand. As you will be aware, 20 odd years ago airlines CEO's backed by the Government fast-tracked pilots (some very dodgy) from overseas. This was at a time when there was a relative global shortage of pilots, which demonstrates the issues that some of those individuals had and when there were many available pilots in this country. Those pilots however got big salaries to take jobs here in order to undermine the local pilots cause.
Now we are again faced with either offshoring jobs or using foreign pilots not trained in Australia to fly Australian airline aircraft. But this time their undermining will be in the form of lower salaries. Sure you can't blame those guys as they are probably currently on a relative pittance but should the Australian air traveller have to put up with this?
It is not racist to state that many overseas airlines and pilots have poor standards. Nor is it paranoia to to suggest CEO's will import dodgy pilots to Australia. It has already happened! Now however it is being done to further boost corporate profitability and most importantly, fatten the already enormous CEO wallet.
I know what it will take for the Australian public to be outraged by this plan/possibility but it's a pity it needs to get to that before there is outrage.
Nip this nonsense in the bud now.
And to illustrate this case clearly, an extract from today's Fairfax press:
Your chances of dying in a plane crash?
It depends on where you fly
September 6, 2010 - 10:56AM
Flying in the developing world is 13 times more dangerous than flying in first world countries, according to a new study.
Arnold Barnett, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and a researcher on aviation safety, calculated that the odds of dying on a scheduled flight in first world countries such as Canada and Japan are one in 14 million.
But he found that flying in emerging nations such as India and Brazil leads to a one in 2 million chance of death per flight. Lesser developed countries, such as many found in Africa and in Latin America, were found to have a crash rate of one in 800,000.
Barnett, who based his findings on air safety data, said Nigeria had an especially poor safety record.