Now, in five years time, what will you do if someone states they are happy to do your job for 30% less? What is your response when they tell you to 'harden up and make the best of it'?
I wouldn't be happy about it. But I wouldn't be telling that person who is going to apply for the job that they shouldn't because I dont like it if they feel that its the best thing for them at the time.
I'm not asking anyone to be happy about cadet schemes. By all means dislike the schemes. But disliking those who use those schemes is just petty. Why should you dislike someone for taking the opportunity that best suited them at the time?
Market forces are what is driving conditions down. Attitudes like yours make the job of airline management easy. These guys are good at manipulating your joy of aviation in to their reduced bottom line. That is what they are trained at doing. Pilots are good at flying aircraft and making conservative short term decisions. With a little cooperation and intelligence we can help stop this rot. Nobody wants to take your job away, in fact what guys are arguing for is to help you maximise the pay you can get for the job you love doing.
An attitude of I want to take the best opportunities I can? Your assuming that if the cadet scheme were to fail that the airlines wouldn't do something else like simply give everyone a pay cut.
The airlines want to reduce costs one way or another and if this way doesn't work they will without a doubt try other ways which may well be less pleasant. Less hours, less pay, less fringe benefits.
At least this way the existing pilots arent negatively impacted in their current roles. None of them to my knowledge has had any pay cuts recently or any major reduction in hours in favour of the new cadets. Especially seeing as their contracts would make it very very difficult for JQ or any other airline to do that.
Unfortunately, everyone who accepts lower conditions than the guy ahead of them reduces not only their own conditions, but also everyone else in the industry and reduces your own chances of that next well paying job.
The simple truth is that if I dont accept the cadetship there are ten other people behind me who will. Therefore what do I gain by declining?
I guess, as a group, pilots are too dumb to use the market forces in their own favour rather than being shafted by much more savvy management.
Your probably not far off to be honest. If drivers really wanted to stop these kind of cadet schemes then they likely have it within their power to do so. The fact that they choose not to either means they are lazy or stupid. Take your pick.
In the mean time those of us new to the industry will simply make the most of what we have.
If a GA job were to pay the same as an airline job at the start then I'd happily take either a GA or airline job. But it simply isn't the case.