Glad to see you're getting bored SDTosser.
I have been raising concern since NJS turned up with the first red tail 146 15 years ago. Since then many people like you still can't string together a coherent response other than a school yard standard "he started it".
Safety concern, horses bollocks, it's an industrial issue.
A short story….
1. A Company has expensive and confident pilots with strong culture. Yuk. Bean-counter nightmare ... ticket prices falling.
2. Fix it by starting up new company with cheaper pilots and make sure culture doesn't get polluted.
3. New company now cheaper but pilots start developing a similar culture. Awful things like complying with rules & regs, taking sick leave when short of pilots, not extending duties when fatigued, not working on short notice when unrested and reporting dodgy practices that might look bad in the press. This is no good, shoestring budget blowing out! Fire them. Bugger. Horrible regulations protecting them and Howard voted out.
4. Make more new companies. Jerk everyone around a lot - they should feel less comfortable now. Bugger, pilots still insist on doing inconvenient things and some have the audacity to stand up for their rights. Some of them even use rules/contractual rights to better their industrial position and maybe even use these to jerk the comany around from time to time. Got to get rid of those rules. They are stuffing up the whole masterplan.
5. Make new industrial situations that totally disempower Pilots. Scare the crap out of them. That'll fix it. Now any rascals miss out on promotion and hopefuly bugger off. Or they'll have to keep quiet because of their massive training debt. Finally we can prove this shoestring budget really works by retaining a new breed of subservient pilots that’ll always help us keep the show on the road.
6. Keep telling the world that safety is our number one priority and that we hold our staff in the highest regard. Make out that anyone who raises concern has an industrial axe to grind. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong?
SDT, this is an industrial issue and OUR BOSS is vigorously pursuing it. But if you cant see the associated safety/operational standards slippage involved then I think you are out of touch.
I am very concerned about disempowered expert workforces (Pilots and Engineers) anywhere within the company that pays my salary. NASA managed to blow up the space shuttle twice by disempowering their experts. If this all goes wrong, we all might end up on the same T&C's - unemployed. Do you think the business will survive a smoking hole in the ground regardless of what colour the tail was? I doubt it.