You are right, Carruthers, you can't stop "progress". But you can do something about it. I have read this entire thread as suggested, including the D&G section, and offer the following thoughts as someone with over 15 years in the business with a "flag carrier".
"Progress" means locating your airline in a weaker regulatory environment, just like the Merchant Navy. Our main lo cost rival "enjoys" an FTL advantage thereby. No-one's been killed by it.........yet, so Flight Ops Director says we should be pushing to adopt their rules. Conversion courses are cut to the bone, and I know from personal experience that the safeguards our airline builds into the system, from flight data monitoring of every sector to our world-leading computer database and analysis system of safety material, are not used by our competitors. Nor are Training Standardisation Captains to check the conformity of trained output to training syllabus, manuals that accurately reflect every type variant operated, generic Flight Crew Orders that cross refer where appropriate to the aircraft type manuals etc etc etc. They all add cost, and cost kills the business in the new "regulation lite" environment, where a Company's safety processes are largely left to itself as long as a semblance of a safety audit per JAR-OPS is evident. (And I do mean a semblance....what constitutes "audit" has some amazing interpretations).
I am NOT knocking in ANY WAY AT ALL the pilots who fly for those airlines. Fact is, they are winning: just look at that Irish airline's financials and its as clear as day.
As to the financial side: I fully realise that we are well paid by industry standards in my airline. I also know after my years in it that without BALPA that would UTTERLY NOT be the case. But it is relative; relative to my uni peer group I have been on the lowest wage for the longest time of that group, Doctors and Solicitors in the main. I enjoy flying, but they enjoy their work too. In the long term their prospects expand as the years go by, whilst mine darken. Our firm will have to cut and go on cutting in a cycle of decline to stay in business, and the cuts in our pride, self-esteem and conditions that have been sought have only been held in some abeyance by the union. The threat to the pension is accute throughout.
To those who say "tough luck" and launch into the stale debate about the independants versus the state carrier I would offer the following:
The United States lead where we follow. Valuejet and the Florida Everglades crash was the nadir of the low-cost phenomenon and I fear the way standards are being eroded here in Europe may lead us down that path, thats ALL of us in professional aviation. We need a common, objective, clear-cut set of minimum standards enforced by rigerous inspection with no opportunity for evasion or "corporate interpretation". Until that is brought about I fear for the industry here very much
As to rewards versus lifestyle versus personal satisfaction, I would argue that the way things are going, it just isn't worth it. I've had a very lucky run at it, but I wouldnt want my son to give it a go.
You can't eat enthusiasm, nor house yourself with it.
I am well aware that the world does not owe you a living.
If you are motivated and driven enough to climb the enourmous hill that is getting into the professional airline industry at all you can do a million other things and do them well enough to lead a very good financial life. It's not all gloom out there. Take a look at the wealth around you. Last time I went to Sydney, for example, it was there in abundance, and it's certainly here in London.
I think the thing is, Carruthers, for those of us in the profession, to accept that, in the current airline market, true value just can not be paid for. It's only when we leave that it might be. And leave we will. My mates at our leading independant competitor at LHR are doing just that: disheartened and demoralised. I am not crowing at all - it is a damning indictment of the industry as it stands when a jet base training captain gives up the job and joins us a junior FO to get away, and his colleagues who paid to get into the industry through being IT professionals are going back to it, as they see no future in aviation apart from cuts and denigration of working conditions and the belittlement of their job. That's progress though.
Two final thoughts. The Merchant Marine:
A friend is a River Thames Pilot guiding large vessels in to the Port of London. The standards he sees beggar belief. Some ships have crossed the ocean using little more than an Atlas and the autopilot. He, a highly skilled practitioner, left the sea as the Foreign Flag phenomenon took hold: BP were amongst the first to do it.
He would never go back.
Like many of his colleagues he also has a "portfolio" income from business ventures he's set up since, and he has a good life.
The "modern aircraft are so easy to fly that the crews aren't true professionals any more so dont deserve the pay" argument:
I can honestly say, having operated very old design technology to the latest fly by wire products from both manufacturers in my career, that this argument can only be espoused by those who don't know what they are talking about.
Modern aircraft operating in the RVSM environment with contemporary traffic levels and the usual european winter are ferociously complex pieces of equipment. A failure to fully comprehend the aircraft's complex interactions and modes in such a dynamic environment can be catastrophic within a blisteringly short period of time. There has never been a greater need for total professionalism on all flight decks.
I think most Flight Ops Directors are accutely aware of this and yet are caught in the downward cost/price spiral afflicting aviation wordwide.
Where will it all end? I dont know, but I've only got my one little life to lead, and seeing what I do ahead I am planning accordingly and I suspect the more far-sighted amongst us are doing like-wise.