It is part of our professional remit to identify problems that will endanger an operation.
Pressure and stress can be insidious, difficult to recognise and hard to accept. As more young lowtimers become involved we must expect a proportionate percentage to get it wrong. I am pressing for a study that compares the possible increase in this kind of behaviour with the reduction in terms and higher workload that has crept into the cockpit in recent years.
Customers expect pilots to act impeccably and they should expect the same from airline management. The days of expecting a business to follow rules in the spirit in which they were intended are over. "Safety is our main priority" might be printed on the card but the motivational posters were taken down in the office a while ago.
I believe the CAA must be firmer with airlines, especially in the current economic environment and the EASA proposals on FTL are an example of this. I have been sending the link in the T&E forum around my email contacts for a while now and I urge more people to do the same.