I think Carruthers makes some very good points, but I will disagree with him on one point <<“to suggest that the events of 89 in Aus are in any way to blame for the apparent decline in status and standing are absurd”.>>
By 1989, maybe things had already reached the stage within the aviation industry in Europe where an event like the Australian dispute would not be seen as a sea change, but in Australia, it was a ginormous ‘own goal’ against pilots for what little the status they still enjoyed. Judging by the number of pilots from the UK charter airlines who eagerly flocked to Australia to participate in converting that ‘own goal’ for the profession, it would seem Carruthers was right.)
While agreeing with most of the other points Carruthers made in his post, I think he’s missing the most important point from the original post, (see link), and that is, if we allow the skills of this profession to be lost by automation, it will be irredeemable and we’ll have allowed the ‘clever’ managers (now with a very few exceptions, there’s an oxymoron if ever I saw one) to make the very same mistake the shipping companies made thirty years before – with the same dire results.
Croozin, I think you should re-title the thread to “A self-inflicted bleak future for Aviation”.
In closing, anyone who hasn’t read the original post, highly recommend you do so.