I am sure you are accurate about that but in counterpoint, we can see that other industries have methods of dumping people even when they are not bad at the job they were hired to do. There is so much industrial psychology in play these days it makes easy work of this- you did a great job on the real work but failed to meet all your self-improvement goals for the last two quarters (all nonsense items)- you get probation etc.

I certainly see the historical significance of this, but I wonder what the future holds. If military pilots are a dwindling number the airlines might consider them a minor loss and allow big changes to occur.