Aviation Finishing School to the World
If/when EASA ever adopts the FAA's rule that you must have at least 1,500 hours before you can sit in the F/O seat of a medium/large aircraft on scheduled air carrier duty: Ryanair's game is over.
In the meantime, get all you can, kids! It's jet time.
And a word to experienced chap(s) who think that the responsibility for protecting the quality of our profession falls on the shoulders of the newest ones struggling to get in:
Get you head examined.
Our profession is going down the tubes because of US, no one else. It isn't the flight schools, it isn't the bean counters or the other managers, it isn't the agencies or the unions, it isn't the oil prices, it isn't Michael O'Leary, it isn't the sandbox or the Ethiopians or the Turks. IT IS US, THE PILOTS. We don't trust each other, we betray each other, we deal directly with the jerks in management, we don't unite and we are a bunch of cowards. It's true, and you know it. If you want to do something constructive, talk to five of your colleagues this week about what we could attain in this profession if we all trusted and respected one another up here in the pointy end. What new standard of living would our LOYALTY to each other buy us?
Try it and find out.