''One of the few remaining work related positives I see are an uneventful trip, with a good crew, to one of the few remaining decent layovers, eating a nice lunch and having a good sleep.''
Apart from good crews obviously not a description for the airbus
The Captain is always right, and has loads of experience and years in the company.
The F/O, well, is the F/O, here to catch the errors that the Capt could miss.
And there is where the problems lies in a few years where the skipper resting on his/her 3 man long haul to Europe will have low hour, un motivated FO/SO up the front with minimal experience and never been exposed to a training regime which does not address many important aspects of the job due to the LEAN measure taken in the company.
These Captains of years of experience wont be here forever and the level of experience bought into the company is falling every single day