Their arguments would be:
- Cadets have been in use at many airlines including BA, bmi, flybe, Thomas Cook, First Choice, Thomson, Monarch, Jet 2 amongst others.
- They have passed all of the CAA written exams and flight tests along the way.
- Simulator courses are all passed to the company and the regulatory authorities standard.
- Vigorous line training with experienced trainers
- Final line check passed to standard
They will turn our arguments about safety around and make us look like we are just interested in the salary drop of the new scheme.
How many members of the public are going to be interested in the 20-something FO who now earns 30-40k instead of 50k+...?!?
The argument about the medic is incorrect, it's more a case of "Our new med school student is being paid 30% less than he used to, but he has still gone through the same checking and exams as before, and he will be fully supervised by a highly experienced consultant. Are you happy?" Yes, of course.
I believe the argument about the drop in safety will be very hard to make stick, and the public wont care about so-called rich pilots still earning double the national average wage.
I think these schemes are absolute ****e and a true sign of the future working conditions for us all, but I doubt anyone outside aviation could care less.