It appears that these schools like most Airline Management believe that Automation and rigid SOP's are all that is required in a cockpit today.
Very true.
It is well known that prior to any order being made, airline executives get to 'fly' simulators and are shown how easily automation handles it all!. It allows little boys to live out their dreams and of course drives the fallacy that anyone can do it. As Mr O Leary has publicly said numerous times, automation does everything these days. The script given to him contains all sorts of put downs, occasionally he will wander off reservation as his own personal biases tend to infect his sad rhetoric.
Qantas' Alan Joyce had a bit of a go at Aer Lingus pilot school, the public story is his eyesight let him down.
Am told from friends in the Qantas group, the former JQ CEO Bruce Buchanan (the BCG accountant) was going on leave one year and was asked his intentions. He replied (and I paraphrase), 'he was going to get an A320 licence'. All miraculously achieved in a few weeks! Amazing!
Of course the skill set takes acumen, time and expense to attain. As Mr Joyce found out some people just can't meet the standard.
Airlines are very concerned of a structural shortage, the emergence of the ME3 and the Chinese carriers continues to absorb lots of the existing supply.
Thus it is completely predictable that the use of the cadet programs will intensify, ultimately will the airlines have to self fund training? This is already evident in many airlines in Europe and the USA.
In the interim expect the manufacturers to pump out
PR on the pilot less aircraft, all achieved by sometime next month!