Utter rubbish. Your straw poll of what the worldwide population considered does not change the facts.
What 'facts' are you talking about?
It was a Brit owned company, managed by Brits, with loads of ex-Mil/Retired BA Brits flying for them. That's a fact.
Until....
Then in 1989 the ANSSETT debacle occurred and hundreds of desperate Aussies were thrown on the world market (debasing it for the rest of us - its the point where our profession started to sink). Many of those Aussies ended up in CX, and brought their mates on board later. They formed a large clique in the company and by the mid 90's had edged the Brits out. It then became an ' Aussie Airline' (God help us) and remains so to this day.
As I understand it, there were around 1,500 Aussie pilots thrown out of work in that dispute. Or to be more accurate - they comitted hari-kiri en masse.
I never met an Aussie pilot outside Oz before that. Suddenly the buggers were everywhere, and acting like they owned every available job on the market. I remember one particular bunch at another SE Asian airline where myself and my 'clique' worked for a while telling us we should f**k off home and stop taking Australians jobs, haha!
They took over CX/KA pretty much in the aftermath of the APAC mess.
By the way, my home company was unionised and we supported the APAC cause. But we were all gobsmacked when we heard what they did. Lots of valuable lessons learned from that one - like, don't put your own head on a chopping block.
Anyhow, like I said, the rot set in after that for pilot T's&C's, worldwide, because there just wasn't the work for them all. Supply and Demand.
Thanks for that lads.
