Pilots, Don't Let the Beancounters Dictate Qualifications. Police Yourselves!
Maybe what should be looked at is what constitutes a "qualified pilot" these days? In the past, at least here in the US, the airlines had many military trained pilots, who had to meet a high standard, both mentally and physically, to even begin their training, which was vigorous and thorough, especially in the basics of flying. Now, because of demand, and more military pilots staying in the military, instead of getting out to work for the airlines, we may not always get the quality of person, with the quality of training, that we used to get. I notice when this is brought up in forums, the non-military trained pilots (which most or them are for the airlines now, I think) get pretty defensive, but I'm not saying all the non-military trained pilots are bad, or even more than a small percentage. I'm just saying, the likelihood of incompetence has gone up. Luckily, it's offset, by better aircraft and automation, making flying still safer, than it was. I say, make the changes in screening and training that are needed, for airline pilots, and raise the pay accordingly. There's just not enough former military pilots to go around any longer. Whether the industry realized it or not, they were using former military pilots in place of having good, in house training and screening. Maybe the training would be a "Back to Basics" continuing education course or test on basic airmanship, including stall and recovery, cross wind landing, etc. and would only need to use a Piper Cherokee or Cessna 172, so maybe, it wouldn't cost so much, risk passengers or a high dollar aircraft? Many airline pilots are part a union. You have leverage to help dictate your compensation, etc. Why not use it to dictate qualification and training, when contract time comes up?. Otherwise, the bean counters will only spend enough to stay in "legal" compliance on qualification and training.