What I think is what I stated above: accidents can and will happen to anyone regardless of experience...such is the nature of our job. But statistically and realistically, experience makes the difference between a non event and an accident. Compare US 1449 with Colgan 3407 just one month later, two accidents with entirely different outcomes thanks to the level of experience.
American had a bad streak in the 90s. USAir did as well. Delta had its share in the 80s. All 3 of these airlines had very experienced pilots at the controls. That is not my point, there is always that possibility that exists; my point is that we can greatly increase safety at the STARTING point of an airline career by hiring experienced pilots instead of neophytes who haven't experienced the real world of flying yet....and the airline world is not the place for that, no matter how good a cadet or an airline program are.
AF447?
China Air 676?
Korean Air 2033?
Colgan 3407?
Pinnacle 3701?
All of these were caused by, or indirectly caused by, weak airmanship by inexperienced pilots. The argument can be made that these maybe wouldn't have happened with more experienced pilots at the controls.
Anyone can nitpick any airline's accident record and pick an argument, but I'm not debating that issue: I'm simply trying to correlate experience with safety. I think that is pretty indisputable. Instead of looking for an easy way into the cockpit based on how much daddy will be paying, get out there and get the experience. I don't see what's wrong with that. Maybe I'm just naive or misinformed by how it's done overseas, but here in the USA we believe that pilots who get tons of experience before taking the controls of a jetliner are the safest bet.