You are miles out Icarus. Many years ago, recruitment estimated the cost of replacing a Captain at around 2 million AED. That included the cost of recruiting a new joiner (FO), bringing in his family, training him, then eventually paying the costs of upgrading him to replace the experienced Captain that left.
That probably doesn't include the cost of educating the new guy's kids...given that the experienced Captain's kids were probably already through their education and no longer costing the company money. (In my case, I've claimed over 1.3million AED in education, but now I don't cost the company a dirham as my kids are over 19).
The surge in training has required us to outsource to places like the UK...can you imagine how much they're paying for that?!!!
Every time a trainee is sitting in a classroom and not out flying the line, it's a direct cost to the airline.
I have no idea what the actual cost is, but I'd say it's incredibly expensive.
I estimated recently that the cost to replace an experienced 15 year captain (3,000,000+AED nowadays) would pay for his higher salary (versus a first year Captain) for 16 years or so.
It's a no-brainer to keep your experienced staff, but that doesn't seem to fit into the equation at EK.