You need to be a hell of a lot brighter to become a doctor than you do to become a pilot. Medicine is an incredibly academic field. That's not to say pilots are all dumber than doctors. To get into the LHS of a UK airline, you will obviously have to display a high level of skill and intelligence. However, to get to study medicine in the UK you need pretty much straight A's in heavyweight A level subjects. This ensures a high likelihood of success during the subsequent 7 years of intense study. This is not the case for pilots. Thank ****!
Back to the subject in hand. Striking over XMAS so your colleagues have to miss their family Xmas is a crap idea.