To those pilots advocating promotion and strict seniority etc please consider that in todays volatile economic environment, if every airline only promoted on seniority / date of joining then, should you be unemployed you will have to start again as a junior F/O at a new company.
As a profession do we think it fair that someone with 20+ years in command possibly a TRI/TRE etc etc has to start again at the bottom of the pile.
Is this how other professions operate, surgeons in a new hospital start again as junior doctors? lawyers changing firms become articled clerks?
Strict seniority is great for those in companies 'too big to fail' and for the trade unions as a recruitment tool, but if captains have in effect the 'not so golden hand-cuff's on and cannot ever afford to walk / change jobs the easyJets of this world would know they have us over a barrel.
There seems to be a lot of criticism of CTC on these threads as if it is the evil empire. Why? They provide a service, for which there is a demand, which people and companies use of their own free will.
Maybe the real problem is the lack of third and second level operators in the UK operting piston or turboprops.
Low houred pilots converting onto a jet face a bigger challenge than those gaining experience on turboprops, so they have to start from a higher base line. All the major airlines have always used Hamble/Oxford/Perth now CTC for their cadet programmes, some foreign carriers still do.
Are we proposing we stop people from paying for their training to force the airlines to sponsor? In which case where do the airlines find the funds for cadet scemes, by limiting pay to fund these schemes of course. It will come out of the crewing budget as a crew cost, so we all pay in lower salaries. People have always had the freedom to pay if they choose. Nothing new there.
It is a big bad capitalist world out there NSF & co. thats life, stuff happens, no such thing as a free lunch, you cannot beat the market etc etc!!