It's missing one important factor though. If at any point between 10-30 years your employer goes bust, then you can expect to join the bottom of the queue all over again quite possibly starting on a salary you last saw when you had hair on your head. Can't think of any other industry where that happens but there you go.
Beautifully summarised here:
The Ugly - The Truth About the Profession
Handcuffed/Starting Over
One of the ugliest things about the airline pilot profession is the fact that we usually are handcuffed to our ultimate employer for our entire career, and if our employer goes out of business, we're forced to start over as if you're a brand new pilot fresh out of flight school. Let me explain...let's look at an accountant and a pilot, both working at Acme Airlines.
Let's say you wish to ultimately become employed by Acme Airlines, which is a large, currently profitable major airline with good career prospects. You spend 15 years of your life earning your Bachelor's Degree and accumulating thousands of hours of flight experience, and you finally make it to Acme Airlines. Fast forward 10 years down the road after you were hired by Acme, and Acme is not doing so well. It's chronically losing money, it's now poorly managed, and it is in danger of bankruptcy. Employees are facing yet another round of pay cuts in order to help support this struggling company.
Now if you were in any other profession (assuming normal economic conditions), when you became unhappy with Acme, you could just leave and find a healthy company to work for. And that's exactly what the accountant does at Acme Airlines. He sees that his employer is struggling and that another round of pay cuts are on the horizon. So what does he do? He looks around for another accountant job and leaves. When he makes this move, it's very likely that this accountant will be able to find a job at another company earning a salary resembling his old salary at Acme, or perhaps maybe even find a job that pays more because he was a great employee, worked hard as an accountant, and his accumulated experience at Acme is appreciated and rewarded by his new employer.
But what about the Acme Airlines pilot? Certainly he could do the same as the accountant and jump ship to a healthier company with better prospects? Nope. As airline pilots, when you leave your current employer for a new one, your new airline employer will start you at the bottom of the seniority list. You're handcuffed to your current employer because leaving would cause you to have to start over at entry level wages and seniority at another airline, leaving you with really no choice but to stay and ride it out.
Let's say you stay and "ride it out" but unfortunately Acme Airline liquidates and ceases to exist. If you were a 747 Captain at Acme Airlines when Acme liquidated, you'd now be competing for the same entry level positions at other major airlines as you were 10 years ago when you were just starting out in the profession, working your way up. And what may be worse, if the economy is poor, and only regional airlines are hiring, you'll be competing against people fresh out of flight school for that $20,000 year regional airline job! That's quite a long financial fall for a 747 Captain. Unfortunately, this story has been played out time and time again. In fact, this story is playing out right now at some airlines. It can be financially devastating, and I personally know pilots who have lost their homes, their marriages, and sometimes their life because of this.