Joking aside
Airlines in Britain have really plummeted.Go back twenty years and you had some nice places to work.Now youve got a lot of back-biting,grassing,fiddly annoying procedures and just a generally depressing workplace(smoking on the deck?Youre fired!No Yellow jacket?Right youre fired!Chewing gum in class?Youre fired!)
Pilots now pack their sandwich box and flask,don their little yellow jacket,say "yes sir,no sir 3 bags full sir" to the security tyrants,lock themselves into their computerzed flight deck and spend 4 hours pushing buttons afraid to take the AP out in sunny ALC and do a visual in case the big bad wolf CP back in Blighty gets a report that they were seen flying the plane and werent stabilized at 20 miles.
I was FO in late 80's and had a riot in Dan Air.There was no CRM,no SOP,no grassing,no yellow jackets,no bs.There was the Captain andsomething called airmanship.We took our cue from him or her and knew our place.0.5% were tyrannical and thus posed a CRM threat but who says life is a bed of roses?You learned to adapt.99.5% were gents and you learned a lot.
I worked abroad ever since and have enjoyed moments but wont forget my time in Dan when flying was fun and there was no bs.If I woke up tomorrow and somebody said to me "You can work for Easy or Ryan but theres nobody else left" I'd find something else to do quicker than you can say "politically correct".