To try and put some perspective on the matter I'll look back over a long career with almost 10 airlines of various hue and creed in a variety of countries. Once upon a time the 'airlines' that flew big noisy jets (outside BA in the 70's) wanted experienced pilots to join their ranks. They were anticipating expansion and wanted suitable new blood. Also the very basic type of a/c we flew, in a very basic ATC environment (other than ATH Greece had little or no radar, and its islands had an ILS/NDB/DME if you were lucky, but not on all runways) required good solid airmanship from the 2 man crew. This was not a suitable environment to train cadets, you needed to have a good aviation grounding beforehand. The training was, 1st, how to fly the a/c; 2nd how to do it according to simple SOP's that were based on FCTM; 3rd how to operate the a/c in a variety of roles and environments. After 7 years or so, and >5000hrs with good prof checks on record you could expect assessment for any command vacancies.
Nowadays the a/c are sophisticated, reliable, include a wealth of navigation information and have excellent autopilots with a wealth of capabilities. Likewise ATC has improved where non-radar is the exception, as is an NPA. There are ILS's all over the place with helpful radar to hold your hand to find them. If not then the FMC will do it for you and tell if you are hot & high or low & slow, and if you are anywhere near where you are supposed to be. As a result the daily routes can be flown by guys who have read and digested the FCTM & SOP manuals and can be trusted to follow them to the letter. This is on a good ideal day, which 95% of them are. A SID is a SID and a STAR is a STAR and an ILS is an ILS and they are joined together by airways loaded into an FMC. Even NPA's can be flown in VNAVPTH or RNAV GNSS just like an ILS. No sweat. The 'flying' part has been reduced to the first 400-1000' after liftoff and the last 500-200' to touchdown. Just follow the SOP's and you can start at A, operate the a/c as per flight plan and arrive in the slot at B. 95% of the time. The odd non-radar airfield, or circle to land is an adventurous day out, and they even have SOP's for those to fly them on the autopliot. Thus a short-haul jet (perhaps even more so the big jets) have become an airborne playstation. Read the instructions and a cadet pilot with CPL can do it. This was not the case in 70's & 80's, but it is now: or so it would seem.
Amazingly some still seem to get it wrong, but that's not the fault of the cadet system. There will be a captain (experienced) who either gets it wrong or allows it to develop into wrong. The cadet can always be over-ruled. The difference I saw amongst cadets was attitude. Some were very sharp and remained so, some were a little blunt and never really cut it. Some were average, competent, but became bored and complacent. They then became blunt but did not realise it. They you had to watch out for.
To summarise: the handling skills are less important now than they used to be with more emphasis on operating skills and following SOP's to save your soul. (Not that I wish it to be so) but still the vital ingredient is attitude. That is where I've seen the selection process at entry level become suspect. The idea that good training = an extensive SOP rule book and a good pilot = one who follows it to the letter can be a workable model, but only if the correct professional, focused, interested attitude is there and maintained. I found some of the average guys taking it for granted that after 3-4 years they would be a captain and earning the big bucks before 30. Their focus was in the wrong place and when time came they were still only average and struggling. Some woke up and scraped through, but should they have been in the industry in the first place?
So, if RYR, ez, or any other of the new boys on the block are considered to have a solid training regime suitable for the modern world and large modern airliners e.g. B777, A340/380 then why not poach them. With the correct attitude they could be very valuable. Would I employ them to fly IFR/VFR around the islands & highlands; I doubt it. But as we saw in the Qantas A380 engine blow out scenario some of the old airmanship methods are necessary, occasionally.
Last edited by RAT 5; 7th Apr 2014 at 21:51.