Sad to say it but I think that, to a greater extent, some of the pilot fraternity have only got themselves to blame for many of these changes.
There are some pilots who if the management said "Fly aeroplanes upside-down today" would meekly obey their order! The "Martini" set still exist, you know, "anytime, any place..."
If all flight deck crew were part of an organisation (dare I even mention the word union!) which had some muscle and bargaining power then our lives would still have just a few perks.
It is obviously not feasible to return to the heady days of yesteryear but we have to get the message across to the bean-counters, the travelling public and the share-holders that pilots still have an enormous responsibility despite the fact that it's all "automatic" these days!
I agree 100% with this entire post. WE have allowed people who have no clue about what we do micromanage the entire industry. WE have rolled over on every issue from "security" (a complete joke) to drug testing.
The first issue that WE rolled over on since I've been in the industry was flight crew "security" screening. Where exactly is the logic of subjecting flight crew to passenger screening. Especially when the REASON that we had to be subject to screening was due to the actions of a GROUND OPS (PSA 1771) employee, who, ironically, are STILL not subject to passenger or any other type of screening.
If you are going to choose just 2 employee groups to be screened as passengers, why choose the only 2 employee groups (pilots and flight attendants) that don't need a weapon to "take over" the aircraft. It gives us a zero net gain in actual aircraft security, yet a 100% net gain in flight crew AND passenger inconvenience (since we jump to the front of the line).
Ditto for drug/alcohol testing... A couple of train drivers take the Grateful Dead's advice and drive the train, high on cocaine, so WE get mandatory, random drug testing...........at the end of our trip on OUR time, when we would otherwise be going home. Excuse me, but, if this is actually a problem, then wouldn't it make more sense to test us before, or during our trip?
These are ony 2 serious issues in the last 15 years that WE could have had some say in, but for whatever reason, chose not to.
Prior to 9/11, as a B-737 Capt. I was personally responsible for over $12 billion of liability (total loss of a full airplane, not counting anything that is hit on the ground), which has gone up since 9/11.
In a nutshell, either I am a trusted employee, or I'm not. If I am not a trusted employee, then I should not be in command of a 130,000 lb cruise missile. If I am a trusted employee, then I should not be standing in my socks every day, silently absorbing the condescending comments from HS dropouts. All the passenger screening in the world is not going to change the fact that I will have complete control of the airplane just minutes after my small tools and toiltries are pilferred.
I can't help wondering what Ernest K Gann, Dave Behncke, Ed Musick or any of the others who paved the road that our profession ride on would say to the tsA employee that forced them to remove their shoes or belt............