PPRUNE Towers, I disagree with a lot of what you say but then I would - I am only an Instructor!!!!
Our department is run by peoplewith plebnty of experience in airliners!) and by and large the courses we provide are those that have been REQUESTED by the airlines, not forced upon them by us.
It was a customer that came to us with the JOC concept because they had worked out that it would save money (by cutting the amount of training time that they had to give cadet pilots. It was other customers that CAME TO US to ask us to provide similar courses for them, once they saw the benefits.
They have proven to themselves (without any cajoling from us) that a JOC saves them money - full stop.
Now GAPAN/EPST have asked the airlines what they think and - surprise surprise - they also think that having to spend less money on training their pilots is good for their business (as long as standards are maintained). They made those decisions, not us. They have concluded that a Jet Introduction Course (self-sponsored version of the airline-sponsored JOC) will save money for them by making it easier to train their low hours pilots. They worked that out without any help from us.
Now, a really progressive airline will pay for the JOC/JIC but there are not many out there that can or will do that (hell, a certain Irish airline does not even pay for the type rating - do you want to blame me for that?). In that case they need to get the best possible raw material and have concluded - without any help from us - that employing someone who has bought a JIC gives them better raw material than someone who has only (their words) done a turbo prop MCC.
The facts are incontrovertable - a decent JIC/JOC or even Jet MCC with a few extra hours of handling tacked on the end, will make you an easier person for the airline to train. Even if those facts were not true then the survey by GAPAN would indicate that this is the way the airlines think - so if the airlines think that way then we, you, and everyone else pretty much has to go along with it.
As for us "stealing" MCC from the airlines - what a joke. You could go to the CAA website if you like and download a list of those UK approved FTOs and Type training organisations(including the UK airlines that do their own type conversions - such as BA, Britannia etc.) and see who is approved to do MCC. Very few of those airlines that have bothered to take up MCC approval actually do it themselves - because it is not worth it. It is too expensive for them to do it in full flight sims with training captains - much cheaper to get someone else like us to subcontract (and some of them do, even though they have the facilities). Why? because we do a good job at a good price.
The webpage in question is
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fcl_ApprovedFTOs.pdf
and you want to look at part 3 of the PDF document that it gives you. Note that although some of those airlines are approved to do MCC - they still get third parties to do it for them. My, we must be good at forcing them to waste money!
Bottom line - it seems that the airlines want this training because it saves them money.
Bottom line - they have in fact worked that out for themselves (clever chappies that they are).
Bottom line - if they think that a prospective FO should have this course under their belt, regardless of logic, then that prospective FO better have it or he/she will be passed over for one that does.
question: for which airline do you work and could you give me the names of the people within your training departments who think that JOC/JIC is a waste of time?