Denti:
"europe has used cadet pilots in their major airlines for the last 60+ years as the norm."
This is not true. It has never been the "norm". The norm (as in the USA) was ex military pilots, regional Turbo prop upgrades and in the case of KLM Cityhopper/Air UK and Flybe - flight instructors.
Yes BA, KLM, Lufthansa all had their cadet schemes but these were (and in the case of KLM & Lufty still are) very well managed with no up front costs from the cadet.
The quality of their training far exceeded the current JAR/EASA Integrated and MPL cadet schemes that are sold through certain flight schools alongside selling Type Ratings and even Time on Type!
Sadly the latter is now the "norm" for the LoCo Jet airlines such as EZY and RYR.
Pay lots and enter a contractor holding pool:
https://pilot.cae.com/Programs/Ryanair.aspx
Pay £84k to join BA:
British Airways Future Pilot Programme | Oxford Aviation Academy - OAA.com
Pay lots to join EZY:
easyJet MPL First Officer Programme | Oxford Aviation Academy - OAA.com
Re: Stalls: Turkish was an automation fault with the Capt's Rad Alt that cut power and rounded out the B737-800 at a much higher altitude than 50 feet (but insufficient for any kind of stall recovery). The least experienced crew member was at the controls and no one mentioned the low airspeed due to a very late and high rate of decent - they thot the a/c throttled back to achieve late decent.
It's not about boring holes in the sky - it is about knowing aerodynamics and your aeroplane and practicing recovery in a real aircraft - not just a procedurally SIM which cannot give accurate representation. That aircraft might be an Extra 300 or a Citation (like Lufthansa Cadets use).
Island Flyer:
The issue was not how many hours the Colgan crew had at impact - it was their low experience at the recruitment stage:
Captain had just over 600h and had failed many exams including IR
FO had flown Single engine aircraft in Arizona (no bad weather experience) and had only 6h of actual IFR time before joining Colgan!
Those are very low hours overall.
As for the time on type - most of the Q400 time was on autopilot and with a serious lack of airspeed monitoring in the event and a stall made worse by undemanded flap retraction by the FO.
NEDude:
Glad to hear you are practicing high altitude stall recovery techniques. Hope it's not just in a SIM. Most pilots forget that FAR 25/JAR 25 test pilots always reduce AoA and allow speed to rise to around 20% above config stall speed BEFORE applying power. My comments on the stalling accidents mentioned "power on stall" because those pilots added power - that made things worse. In the case of AF447 adding power with full aft stick was more of a Terrain/Wind Shear Airbus technique not a stall recovery method.