Flick.... Yes and No.
Take the situation at QF / JQ. QF offers a promotion to their pilots (both QF and JQ seniority list) for a position in (for example) KL or SIN. The pilots look at but discover it's a (for example) 30-40% salary reduction. They cannot accept that for whatever reason. Integrity being one I would think. So, QF/JQ get precisely what they were after in the first place and employ local pilots on those local terms who do not have the same training or experience that the "home growth" pilots.
Another example. Say a pilot is earning $10 k per month and that is what his/her experience and credentials command. Jobs are offered at now $4 or $6 k a month. The pilot commanding the $10 k per month salary will not accept that slap in the face (as he or she may see it) however one with greatly less experience, less training who sees that salary as a promotion from where they are presently will. This is exactly what is going on at CX.
Personally, I am not about discussing salaries but one cannot deny the impact they have. To what degree is up to the individual. What I have been arguing all along is that airline managements who seek to lower terms and conditions, to lower training standards and allow the bar of skill, ability and airmanship to be lowered.... This is exactly what goes on at airlines like Air India where the xenophobic nature of the place is hell bent on kicking out the expats with 10,15, 20+ thousand hours of wide body experience and replace them with 185-220 hr FO's or 1500 hr TT Capts. As these kids see it, they have a CPL and therefore are "qualified". In theory they are, in reality they haven't a bloody clue to the extent where, and from what I witnessed, it's criminally negligent. I do not deny that these kids give it there all when in the seat but what is level or standard of their "all" when incidents have exposed the standards accepted (zero IF skills, fraudulent log books, Capts landing on the nose assembly, etc, etc, etc...)? Is their level of proficiency (airmanship) the same as one with vastly greater experience and training received from an airline with a different culture to standards, training, checking and airmanship? That is my point and argument.
I do not blame the pilots. I blame the numerous airline cultures whereby recruitment and training standards are permitted to slip to lower levels for the sake of profiteering. A TRE/I should be permitted to do his/her job and fail a pilot if need be or extend the sim time to offer training (not only checking!) when needed. As witnessed by myself and others on this thread some airline cultures try to force TRE/I's to pass pilots due commercial pressures despite the threat of safety and airmanship. That is for their own (TRE/I) conscience to work out.
I still argue and ask the question whether the skill and airmanship demonstrated by the examples offered in the very first post on this thread are a dying breed.
I have my opinion based on first hand accounts and what I see and hear every day (eg RT standards for one). Others have theirs. I'm not saying I'm right, just my opinion.
