RE Automation.
Yes aircraft are continually getting more automated but this has resulted in 2 pilots taking over the roles of navigator, engineer and radio operator. So nowadays pilots must be able to monitor all the systems and make decisions with the aid of the plethora of systems. However when the sh1t hits the fan and systems fail I believe that we have to be better pilots since we need a breadth and depth of knowledge to deal with the non-normals.
RE CAT3B.
Can't say I do many of these, just about the legal minimum once or twice every 6 months. But AWOPs itself is a huge can of worms, have a look at the Penta hotel incident. AWOPs is another string to our bow over yesteryear pilots who just diverted to CAT 1 conditions.
RE Professional Pay
With Doctors, solicitors, stockbrokers etc. These professions have strict centralised qualifying exams which are set by prfoessional institutes (law society, ACCA etc) which look after the interests of their professional membership. They set tough exams and entry requirements and make it very difficult for half wits to get in.
Imagine an incompetent heart surgeon who got into the position by paying his way through, getting his qualifications in some third world country and performing on your loved one? Would you say, "That's the way of the world, there's a demand for cheaper heart surgeons and this guy has always wanted to be one, as long as there are no complications he'll be alright lets pass him the scalpel!"
In the UK we have the JAA/CAA taking control of standards, setting standards whose enforcement cannot be pragmatically policed. For example a low cost airline who hires someone from Tim-buck-two because he's willing to work for peanuts; now he's not the best flyer (having failed plenty of aptitiude tests he's effectively paid a company to take him on) and is performing at minimum standards. Will the company training capt fail him?
So you see that although we have a free market system wrt Labour in our industry, it is skewed. This is because people who are below par are allowed a licence and there are many companies out there who are willing to drop standards in order to get someone in the seat, this enables more "supply" and thus the free market price of the good (our labour/labor" falls.
The only way IMHO to address this is to have centralised standards. The CAA must be able to chose which pilots within a company are checked by CAA inspectors, take their sim detail and pass or fail them. If a particular company is found to be hiring below the grade pilots then more CAA sims will be conducted on their workforce. This of course would never happen since the CAA will answer to the £££'s of the company rather than protect the standards (hence Ts and Cs) of the pilot community.
