I am afraid that this is just a case of Australia finally catching up with the rest of the world. I have worked with many pilots, Captains included who started flying as fully fledged F/O's with just on 200 hours on big jets such as DC10's and classic 747's. Equally I have seen some pretty 'experienced' GA pilots who have joined the airlines and been pretty 'crap'. Cathay, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, BA, Air France, Lufthansa, Ethiad all have 200 hour cadet schemes some of which allow the cadet directly into the right hand seat, no one has ever questioned the safety of these schemes, WHY. The cost of the course can't be the only thing, the amount the Jetstar Cadets are paying is offensive, it will not however mean they are trained to lower standard than if the scheme was free. There is no doubt a 'profit' motive to this new cadet scheme, lets not forget though that the cadets are not forced to sign up to this deal, the advice has certainly been out there advising against this.
As for the FAA, they have reacted to a highly publicized crash when raising the minimum pilot experience levels. Fact of the matter was though that both pilots on that Dash 8 that stalled had over 1500 hours experience, what the FAA has overlooked is that both of these pilots were being paid peanuts and where absolutely shagged due to the FTL's that they were operating too. Why didn't they react to this by tightening up on the duty times that pilots operate to, or perhaps introducing a 'minimum wage' for flight crew to ensure they could actually afford to live where they work!! Because this goes in the too hard basket.
CADETS are not a big threat to airline safety!!
CADETS are a big threat to those pilots who are toiling through GA at the moment as they may be left out in the cold. However, JETSTAR will never be able to service their entire FO recruitment through CADET's alone so there will always be a place for experienced Direct Entry.
The BIGGEST threat to airline safety is the ability of airlines to dictate to the regulators. If CASA took airline safety seriously they would be REGULATING instead of aiding the airlines in reducing safety standards. When airlines ask for an exemption to operate with less Cabin Crew they could say NO, exemptions for high capacity operators to operate longer duty days....NO, employing pilots on inferior contracts to fly the same aircraft...NO!!
If you want to improve safetly, encourage CASA to grow a pair
