Thank you Kitsune.....And thank you Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger.
Like most of us, I simply cannot believe what is going on in the airline industry today. The industry and the pilot profession is in desperate need of a chartered body to protect against cost based hiring practices and a weak and willing regulator.
An airliner with 400 souls on board should not be piloted by a Captain in the left seat with a green novice in the right seat. Consider this: a bathroom break by the Captain results in leaving the cockpit in the hands of the novice (under the watchful eye of a flight attendant). This is simply insane, and eight to 12 seconds of useful consciousness away from a disaster caused by a delay in donning an oxygen mask. Not to mention slamming into a CB, or any other number of dangers and risks. It should be obvious that the traveling public deserve better.
Sadly, the airline industry and we as pilots lack the oversight and protection of a chartered association to oversee licensing standards, and must rely instead on government regulators. Although the FAA has stepped up to regulate minimum experience levels in commercial jet airliners, the government regulators in the rest of the world have not....but instead do the bidding of airline management.
Like every other profession, pilots of commercial airliners should have requisite experience and commensurate skill levels. Personally, I would not want to be operated on by a 200 hour surgeon; or represented at my divorce hearing by a 200 hour lawyer; or have a 200 hour accountant handle my tax audit.
Like any other profession we need a chartered non-government body to regulate professional standards and grant professional licenses and credentials: A Bar Association, a College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Teachers, Accountants, etc.
We can call it the Chartered Association of Professional Pilots.
I won't see it in my life time; hopefully many of the readers here will.
Raven