<<The truth is I still love flying and don't want to do anything else, but I can seriously see myself eventually losing my medical if I don't get a more reasonable flying job.<<
I couldn't agree more. My guess is that airline flying will increasingly become a short term career option for people in their twenties and thirties. Airlines will increasingly use training pay back schemes to reduce investment in training. Savings will be made on pensions, incremental salaries and lack of seniority. The overall depth of experience will reduce. This ultimately represents a degradation in safety.
However, this is innapropriate because:
A. People have a right to work in a reasonable way without being continually overtired or stretched in their task.
B. The task has become a lot more complicated and demanding especially post 9/11.
C. The only real issue is ticket price. So what if prices rose to provide better safety margins?