Pilt, it's market forces. If the EU airlines don't have the spaces for everyone and the locos don't offer good packages, then where do you expect pilots to go? Should they accept lower conditions and work for unscrupulous employers just to stay in a high tax environment to pay for people who don't work, students, health tourists and so on? As long as people pay what liabilities they have, what's the problem? Those who continue to pay social contributions will get their full pensions, and those who don't will have reduced state pensions based on prior contributions. So where is the problem? Let's face it, AF, Olympic, Iberia and others all go state aid even when it was made explicitly illegal, and I suspect AF and Alitalia still do. Even KLM was helped by the EU allowing it to buy up AF after BA were blocked from doing so.