Dark Knight. I'm afraid you (and quite a few others) still don't get it. Will 1500 hours and an ATPL ensure a candidate is better equipped for their initial airline seat than a 200 hour Cadet trained from the ground up? Who knows! That argument has been done to death, and will continue to be debated for as long as we have those varying streams of entry.
The main issue is the pure evil of the Jetstar Cadet Scam. It is in existence for one reason and one reason only. To drive down wages and conditions. Anything else is just a diversion. The creation of cheaper pilots will lead to one inexorable conclusion, disaffected and distracted pilots. The FAA has recognized this and have mandated a system to put value back into the profession. Something that Jetstar management are unwilling to accept, and we all know what Jetstar (and QF) want, they usually get.
If Cadetships are so superior, why doesn't the operator foot the bill? After all, at Qantas "Safety is our number one priority"! Instead the candidate is mired in debt and subjected to subsistence wages on
graduation? That's a recipe for disaster! That's the argument. Anything else is just smoke and mirrors.
