Guptar,
You may well be right, Australia has been hollowed out. Andrew Robb resigning as a trade minister to pop up a few months later working for the Chinese company Langridge, naturally one of his last official roles was completing a FTA with China.
John Howard rather cleverly, 'stopped the boats' but opened the floodgates to refugees coming by aircraft, with intent to pump property prices. No infrastructure and now Australian cities are gridlocked. Labour continued the racket. Who could forget McFarlane who went from industry minister to a representative of the mineral's council. Of course don't forget that little Persian grub Sam Dastryari, quite comfortably having the Chinese pay a personal bill, step out behind the position of the party..soft power pushes everywhere.
However, short of an implosion, Australia and all western economies face a big problem: Aging work forces, big unfunded entitlements and not a clue how to address it.
Neville you are quite correct, many of the airlines increasing remuneration and struggling for applicants in the USA, feed the majors, the problem they have is who feeds them? This is precisely my point. I would also point out that Southwest is hardly a regional. Neither is Delta. Here is their latest response to this imagined shortage:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ots-union-says
Further, taken from the text of one article(my emphasis);
'That looming pilot deficit will soar to 15,000 by 2026, according to a study by the University of North Dakota’s Aviation Department, as more captains reach the mandatory retirement age of 65 and fewer young people choose commercial aviation as a profession. And that’s in an industry where captains on the biggest international jets average more than $200,000 a year -- with some pushing $300,000.
A pilot shortage is already the bane of the often low-paying regional carriers that ferry passengers from smaller airports to hubs operated by American, Delta and other major airlines. That’s worrisome for the major carriers because they typically use the smaller operators as a pipeline for hiring.
QED
Show me a western economy not facing an aging demographic?