Couple of points. Well, more rhetorical questions, that if anyone wants to respond to, I'd be interested in the answers.
1. WHY does ANYONE consider a seniority system a "fair" way of recruiting. It is absolutely UNfair. Why should someone with bare minimum competence to pass the upgrade course get this honour ahead of someone else who is a better/more experienced pilot? Ezy and Fr are great examples of companies where people got early commands [in the early years!] with comparitively little experience. Given the whinge about 'cadets' is always about low experience, this seems yet another example of "one rule for me, another for you". Promotion based on seniority seems to be only really prevalent in the airline industry, every other company on the planet decided long ago that competence based recruitment was a far better solution. In context of aviation, seniority is the one thing that traps people in a given company and therefore doesn't help, it restricts.
2. Whilst I agree with the sentiments expressed by Superpilot, it does make me chuckle - the amount of smug self righteousness expressed by [some of] those who went modular at how much money they saved over "the poor dumb rich mummy/daddys boys who went integrated because they were too thick/lazy/ugly/ responsible for endangered species dying out to do it themselves", which is then promptly followed by wails and gnashing of teeth that they can't get a [jet] job because the only route in is via these schemes that are run by the integrated schools. No, it's not right, but next time, when you're just about to launch into a tirade about the poor dumb rich kids, stop and think about who is really the fool - the fool who spent £100k but got the job in the end [irrespective of whether 'the dream' turned out to be a dream or a nightmare], or the fool who spent £50k and got nothing to show for it.....
3. Cadets/inexperienced/accidents etc. Yes, undoubtedly cadets aren't as experienced as someone with 1000s of hours. That's just logical. However, show me the pilot who just woke up one day and found they had 5000 hours experience on the bus or boeing that they didn't have the night before. You ONLY get experience by 'experiencing' it. Would 1500 hours - as often suggested - in a Cessna 152 REALLY make you any better a pilot in the MRJTs [than, for the sake of comparing apples with apples, a cadet who went straight to an MRJT and now has 1500 tt, 1300 on type]? Personally I seriously doubt it. The two aircraft are totally different beasts and the airmanship applicable to a Cessna is probably only very loosely transferable to an MRJT. The reason Cadets are here to stay is because you can't find/imply/prove a link between their inexperience and safety. For every Kos accident, the airlines will show you 1000 flights operated safely with a low hourer in the cockpit. Then they'll show you another 10 accidents of a similar nature that were crewed by experienced crews only. And with each passing day, the number of flights safely operated by low experience crews goes up worldwide. I agree - really I do, that it's not right that these "screw the new guy" deals are the only way in for the moment. I agree that logically, a less experienced crew is likely to be less safe than a more experienced crew, but the only link you can make between inexperience and safety is the entirely logical assertion that if the experience levels are lower, then overall safety is likely to be lower than it could be....NOT that it's UNSAFE....because it manifestly ISN'T unsafe, is it.