Cesspool,
Re salaries - to the vast majority of joe public on an avg wage of $55k or something, those wages are over the top.
Looking solely at the Captains wages - there are not many companies in Australia that would have that many people earning $250k +
Now I appreciate that flying is totally different to most normal professions.
But 'most' employees do 48wks Mon-Fri of 9-5, 0.5hr lunch - which is 1800hrs /yr. Many high paid employees do substantially more in unpaid overtime.
Pilots capped at 900hrs (appreciate there is more prep time etc which should be counted) but there is definitely a difference.