WWW, you raise, as ever, some interesting points. Might I comment?
>>I look forward to my working day at least half the time - my contempories mostly live for the weekend.<<
Ten years on you may have a family and weekends will be really important and you might have a different feeling about it all.
>>I suspect we are towards the bottom of the cycle at the moment where pilots are in a poor bargaining position<<
Sure. Been there before and have the Tea Shirt. However, there is a major structural change in the industry that makes this cycle different. That is the tight budgetry control which airlines must manage, Any alleviation in our lifestyle issues (less flying, pricy bidline packages, more nice managers to listen to our problems, more days off, friendly rosters etc) will only come at a cost.
>>In 5 years time I think the position will be very different and thus we can look forward to a betterment in pilot terms & conditions.<<
I do hope so but I fear the airlines will manipulate the circumstances as hard as they can to avoid this.
The only issue that will drive things forward for pilots is a real and painful pilot shortage. I.e. a set of circumstances whereby the airlines simply have to give us the contract terms and conditions we want in order to trade seats.
Unless someone makes a cast iron safety case for a pilot friendly contract . . .