As an old timer on my leafy perch, reading the recriminations and who did or didn't do what to whom, I am struck by some of the material and very relevant omissions that so many of you have allowed to cloud your historical perspective.
In "the good old days" you couldn't get a CPl/IR with 250 hours, it took much more than that. At least 700 hours, and even then airlines weren't really interested in you. Actually that isn't entirely correct. You could get a CPL/IR with 250 hours, but only through a very limited number of "approved" flight training schools. The main players in those full time, 2 year courses of integrated training were: BOAC/BEA at Hamble; CSE at Oxford; and AST at Perth. The latter two establishments provided integrated courses of approved training for both private individuals, and also in conjunction with a few airlines ab-initio sponsorship programmes.
Hamble closed, and what became British airways elected to contract out their ab-initio programmes to the other commercial integrated providers. However this type of airline ab-initio regime existed for decades. It was never a particularly major part of the overall recruitment pond, and it happily sat in its own little corner of the industry.
With the advent of JAR and all things European, the licensing system changed. The CPL was intended to become (what it had always been in most other countries) an "aerial work" licence. As part of that harmonisation the requirements were slashed to 200 odd hours for all. No more instructing on a PPL. Now you needed the CPL to legitimize that avenue of pursuit.
For the full time ab-initio courses, there was little change. The new incarnations and evolutions of the old "approved schools" were now Oxford (under new ownership), FTE and CTC.
The big change came in the "self improver" end of the recruitment pond. Here there was a perception that 250 was the new 700! Now anybody with 250 hours and a CPL/IR could fling themselves at the door of airlines, who would all be hungry to snap up the feast of keen new applicants. Strangely that didn't happen. Now to be fair, there was a very vocal young Irishman who seemed to court much publicity with outrageous declarations that "two pilots were an unnecesssary waste of money, that simply thwarted the bargain hungry traveller from being guaranteed a seat to anywhere in Europe for only 99P! Despite his much publicised declarations that two pilots was simply one too many, and cabin crew could do the F/O's job just as well, and anybody with the basic licence could sit in the seat and even pay to sit there. The truth is that the regulators could only find no absolute objection to the last two. Their only real concern was that the pilot in the left hand seat had experience to compensate.
Believers in this new religion flocked to part with their cash. The feeding frenzy to obtain this 250 hour CPL/IR spread from Florida to Puddlewick-on-the Marsh, as every flying school in Christendom (and beyond) became an "Academy" of airline qualification. As every airline then realized that the public now wanted to fly everywhere for 99P, it slowly dawned on them that wasn't really possible without employing the same or similar methodology as that young Irishman.
So they all realized they had to cut their wage bill. That was going to take time, and it had to start from the bottom up. Most of them weren't too happy to go down the anyone with a licence route, so they turned to the big 3 full time training schools to satisfy a ramped up ab-initio programme, that had always existed in one form or another. In reality even the Irishman was sourcing many of his new recruits via this route.
As this evolution of the new regime started to grow, fuelled by a plethora of plentiful, obtainable, unsecured and cheap money, we watched from the leafy branches in awe as the feeding frenzy took place in the pond beneath us. You think we were going to stick our hand in that melee? Then came the recession. Banks stopped lending (even to one another.) Airlines stopped recruiting. What recruitment did occur, was confined to one or two of the new reality airlines. Those airlines turned up the heat even more, by driving down their costs wherever the opportunity existed.
For the next few "ice age" years, recruitment outside of these limited markets was glacial. However the industrial realities hadn't gone away. This period was utilized by the major players (training schools and airlines) to put in place the necessary investment and expansion, to dominate the growth that they expected once the ice started to melt. To some extent that ice has started to melt, and guess what? Once the real thaw sets in, there are going to be some very upset people who failed to heed the reality that was already happening a decade previously.
So, whinge, bitch, recriminate all you like. For many years now, some of us have been shouting from these leafy perches. Only a few chose to listen. If it is any consolation at all, the new realities have now started to reach these upper branches. So perhaps it won't be the wonderful sunset we all envisiged when we were in our twenties. For those of you in your twenties, adapt to the new realities. This is an evolution. It may not be the evolution that any of us would have wanted, but it is one you are going to have to live with. The old days have gone.