It will become very critical should there be a collapse by one or more legacy carriers. Currently the options available are for pilots who are unemployed due to a liquidation are to sign onto another carrier making $20K a year or leave the industry. There needs to be a way to keep the highly skilled people in the industry.
Your argument is to hire a pilot based on merit, I agree with that so no need to bet. In the corporate world this is largely how it is done. In the airline world though what you get isn't determined by merit it is again seniority.
Are you talking about the two guys who tried to 410 it? That wasn't an issue of qualifications that was an issue of stupidity, there have been more then a fair amount of those in the Majors as well. Straw men arguments are easy "Would the FX M1F have maybe not crashed in NRT with a less experienced crew?", but clearly pointless. Statistics indicate increased not decreased safety since deregulation.
We have thousands of pilots going $100K in debt to get a $22K a year job. What do you think the result will be when we triple or quadruple the wages? Do you think there will be less pilots seeking those jobs, or will even more people try to get an airline job? Let's go one step further, I am sure there are pilots you know at UA that shouldn't be in the right or left seat but the union will make it almost impossible to remove them. Do you think that is right as well?
When I was first flying many of my fellow students were looking to get to the airlines which at the time all had 500 ME time requirements. All of them without exception pencil whipped a good chunk of that into their books. I am a good pilot but my ATP check ride basically consisted of me handing somebody $1500, wasn't much of a check ride.
If you want a meaningful regulation change which will impact safety it is simple. All check rides with the FAA and the FAA starts pulling certificates of people who shouldn't be flying. Much like commuting, nobody is going for that. I suspect roughly 30% of the GA population and 15% of the commercial population would be eliminated in the first year. Certainly would do more for safety then requiring 1500 arbitrary hours which are logged via the honor system.
You have a foregone conclusion in your head that is safety has decreased or will be X number of years in the future even though nothing supports the argument. I don't know how you expect anyone to prove how something won't happen that hasn't happened and statistics tend to indicate the opposite of what you suggest.
Because nobody really wants meaningful improvements in safety. You want more pay the airlines want less cost. Both sides use safety as a wedge issue but it really has no impact. I still chuckle every time somebody makes the argument about age 65 and safety, as if safety really has anything to do with either side of the argument.
When you moved to a new aircraft type at UA did you land it for the first time with people in it? Isn't IOE done with passengers on board? All the airlines train on the job in addition to classroom/sim time, there is nothing inherently dangerous to it. Ab inito programs are very much the flavor outside the US and something that industry here should look more at doing. Train people right from day one.
That wasn't the point though. You made the case that because somebody in as example China is paid $1 a day that the maintenance they perform will be less. So it would appear we agree on this point.
