I agree with Tailscrape.
We as pilots are highly motivated to do our job, but so are people in other professions (doctors, lawyers etc). You will appreciate that they will find similar cause for greviances with their terms and conditions as we as pilots do. We, in addition, mostly paid for our own training etc etc.
If we want to be considered as proper professionals we should not be mucked about by airline managers who all too often seem to have forgotten what it is like to be at our end of the food chain. Comments like I will fly for chips are easy to make, but very soon your tune will change. Very soon. Trust me. My first job was pretty much for chips, and I was treated disgracefully.
What upset me was that I was treated like someone who should be grateful to the manager of the establishment, rather than someone who was supplying a skill to contribute to his business. The low pay I could (just about) cope with. There were plenty of other pilots, as he pointed out to me one day, so I called his bluff and gave my notice. I was able to go and earn a decent wage in a different industry where my skill would be appropriately rewarded, and more importantly, I was treated like a skilled professional and human. So it delayed my start to an airline career, but not by much, and I retained my dignity. What happened to them I neither know nor care.
There is no reason for professionals in any industry to accept bad management or poor T&Cs, and those who say that they will bend over backwards to get into the industry will gain little respect from peers, seniors and managers. They need us as much as we need them. Why do you think all the ads in Flight and elsewhere ask for type rated crews rather than saying that jobs will go to the lowest bidder!?
I appreciate the desperation of wannabes - I was there, but good will don't pay the rent. And what do you think the public would think of being flown by people on Youth Opportunity schemes or unemployment benefit wages? They expect to be flown by professionals on professional wages: if they knew the truth about our wages as they are they would probably fall off their stools in shock.
prob30: "The more of you fussy whingers the better in my book - it lowers the competition for folk like me who realise we are useless nobodies and to get a chance flying for a firm like Easy or Ryanair is a damn good gig.
They do not owe you anything." err actually they do. Or why else would they offer the salaries they do, and have a listing on the London Stock Exchange. They are not the Mission Aviation Fellowship you know. If you wish to subsidise their buisnesses and the life styles of the management send me your bank account number: I will be happy to spend it for you. These guys are not fussy wingers, but just ordinary people with ordinary lives who face the same pressures as anyone else. if you haven't had to conduct a long distance relationship yet, give it a go. It isn't easy. Add into that folk with children etc: why shouldn't they know early on where they will be based.
In conclusion, wannabes, do what you have to do to get into the industry, but keep in mind you are professionals not casual labourers. You have a right to be treated as such, and to be paid as such. And you should behave as such. It will be hard to find an employer in the early days who will fulfill all those criteria, but there's no harm in standing up for your own dignity.