I have two friends at easy, and it seems that some trainers are sold on the cadet 100% for the reasons you said but there are others that that say that cadets are not better than an experienced DEP.
It's been said 1 million times before, cadets are part of the industry, always have and always will be. What has changed is the employers are skewing the terms and conditions of the pilot work force by flooding the industry with low hour guys by using the big training providers and a carrot of a jet job at the end.
If it wasn't about money then cadets would be straight in on full FO pay. If the big cadet taking low co companies employed experienced or a greater mix of pilots then the integ training providers and the post frozen atpl jet training providers wouldn't have the carrots in the same numbers and the gravy train comes off the rails.
Also, do the trainers at Orange have shares and receive dividends? If so, they have a vested interest in screwing over the new starts for their own profit.
If the companies were to be honest and say we are screwing you because we can, you know what, I can accept this. What I don't like is trying to wrap it up in coloured paper to make it look presentable when the bull**** is leaking through the seams.
Oh and easy seemed to do ok with there pilot workforce training before cadets, I'm guessing most of the more senior pilots weren't cadets. Also like in the workplace outside aviation, you have the same talk about graduate employment. Grads like to employ grads and I guess cadets will say they are the best also.
Rant over, off to the beach.