It isn't avoiding the point at all.
Supply and demand sets the market price. You can manipulate and distort the market, but invariably water finds its own level eventually. If you think "Incumbents" or "I'm all right Jack" or "supply and demand" captains, are living in some sort of bubble, immune to the realities of the market, then you are deluding yourself. Few Captains or long experienced F/O's haven't seen their own terms and conditions significantly denuded over the last decade.
Gone are the Final salary pensions. Gone are many of the insurances, benefits and perks that used to be a regular feature. Gone is the idea of a comfy retirement at 55. Your "comfy captains" have had the opportunity to extend (in many cases) their working lives by up to 10 years, to in part help compensate for some of the reductions evident in their own terms and conditions.
When lo-cost carriers ascended over the last 15 years and in the process stripped out input costs wherever they could find them, did you think that wasn't going to involve wages, benefits and perks?
The "I'm alright Jack" and the"supply and demand" brigade are conveniently
overlooking that if life is so cushy for the incumbents, then perhaps they are
being paid to much, and said pay should be diverted to attract experienced
entrants, which at the moment it is failing to do. Not what we would seek, but
that's the flip side of arguing that we should suck up the ctc 'deal', because
that's all we are worth.
Perhaps they are, and perhaps they will. If so you can look forward to that road sign to your own future, which will arrive soon enough! However before you get too smug take a look over at the wannabes forum. There are hoards of 250 hour CPL holders who are clamouring for the floor sweepings. They would regard this type of work as all their birthdays rolled into one.
So at the top you have your experienced pilots who can sell their newly granted time extensions to compensate for their losses. At the bottom you have the gates bulging with wannabes desperate for their dream. That is a lot of oversupply and not a lot of unsatisfied demand.
How much are your services worth? I don't know! What is the market price in the UK, in the Middle East, in China?