Once again:
Doctor, lawyers and most other professionals, nor any others with very expensive and specialized training, do not follow the same career paths as major airline pilots.
Also, major airline pilots must obtain sponsored training/experience (very, very few cases, with a long apprenticeship of many years) or arrive with previously gained experience (5-20 years, usually at great sacrifice and investment) to get a starting-level airline pilot job....and then stick with that low paying starting job at the same company for many years (10-30) to make the choice worthwhile.
Good doctors and lawyers (etc.) can finish school and sell their abilities to the highest bidder, for as long as they wish, and keep trading up or start their own practice with an office and maybe some necessary but affordable equipment (unlike 50-300M USD airplanes). They do not risk their entire careers and futures on the one company they choose for their first good, potentially/hopefully long-term job, the way pilots do with the airline seniority-based system. And, too frequently it doesn't turn out to last that long anyway.
After even just a few years, the cost of changing jobs can be extreme when one has to start again at the bottom of another seniority list.
Educating newcomers about the reality of the continuously eroding package is one way to stop or reverse the erosion, and the only way to do that is in public.
Also, pilots are not ashamed of or embarrassed by their high value to employers and customers.
Last edited by Iron Skillet; 27th Sep 2011 at 17:38.