For crying out loud what is wrong with the lot of us? Stupid selfish people.
Yes granted, Qantas pilots have been arrogant and yes it's just by luck they haven't been embroiled in the malaise that's enveloping the whole aviation industry but why oh why must fellow aviators like this Flyboat fellow insist on dragging everything to the lowest common denominator?
There is so much nonsense spread about this industry regarding salaries. I know for a fact that salary packages in Asia as Airbus and Boeing Captains top A$500,000 and the carriers that paid that money remain extremely profitable. It can be done.
In Australia we had the Ansett collapse and the people who started Jetstar wisely pitted some ex-Ansett pilots and others (for whom jets were perhaps hitherto a missed opportunity), against industry norms for salaries. Quite simply, they were prepared to fly these aircraft for low salaries and relished the chance to undermine their QF peers in the process. Qantas pilots collectively were sufficiently myopic and arrogant that they isolated the Trojan Horse that was JQ as some sort of inferior scum (let's not talk to them on the crew bus) and this appalling approach is inevitably biting them on the bum now.
So we are ourselves largely responsible for the predicament we are in now. Pilots undercut others for whatever reasons and those arrogantly perched at the 'top' (although not really the top by international standards) think they are sufficiently gifted or special that they are immune from reality. Those nearing 65 seem to think who cares - get what I can now (get compulsorily transferred to the QF 737 fleet and then go sick) and forget the consequences for the younger guys.
The net result is that we are deftly manipulated by those who seek to undercut our terms and conditions, principally to fatten their own wallets. We do their work for them. With peers (?) like Flyboat, who needs enemies? We are white-anted by our own for whatever self-serving logic seems all important at the time.
An unrealistic expectation of course, but we should all be fighting to sustain the QF terms and conditions at the very least, not undermining them at every opportunity. Whilst I'm not entirely convinced the vaunted pilot shortage will materialise to the degree forecast, now is the time to collectively encourage boosting industry conditions not undermining them.