Blueplume,
A very well-presented argument. Just a couple of points I would query though:
The first relatively cheap package holidays available to the common masses started in the late fifties and early sixties, with the Costa Brava being the destination of choice to impress your neighbours with your orange glow. So the scenario you are describing, is more like 50 years ago, and I’m sure you’ll agree that absolutely nothing is what it was 50 years ago.
The opening comment regarding the comparison with doctors, is in reference, I believe, to a remark made by ‘waco’, which in turn was a response to the following, posted by Prof. Rubik:
“If a junior doctor had the option to pay to bypass all of the years working nights in an A&E for low money and go straight in as a surgeon I bet they would do”.
…. the inference being that an FTO graduate is able to pay his way straight into the captain’s seat, which we all know is not the case (yet). There’s a hell of a difference between a surgeon and an FO, both in terms of remuneration and status. Spending years working nights in an A&E for low money with the hospital registrar on call if things get a bit sticky, is not that dissimilar to what the new crop of contract FOs are currently experiencing. As for the fact that doctors are not re-examined on a regular basis, well that’s true. But they are examined on an irregular basis if they make an incorrect decision which results in someone’s death, and which could result in them being ‘struck-off’. The main difference, however, is that the screw-up of an individual doctor is not likely to result in the demise of a few hundred people, and the associated aftermath of such an occurrence.