While I appreciate what this guy was trying to do, he did it incredibly poorly. Scaring people into action by claiming that their lives are in imminent danger is irresponsible, at best. His writing is full of half truths and poorly drawn conclusions. If I were not in the industry, I would take away the folowing from this article:
1) New First Officers are woefully unprepared to fly because their previous jobs had them flying inferior aircraft. They are dangerous. Look at Colgan.
2) Colgan happened because of a pilot shortage. If there are less pilots, more people will die.
3) "Studies" have shown young pilots are less experienced than older pilots and there are a lot of young pilots around right now making twice as likely that you will crash. So, if young people are flying your airplane, you're going to crash.
4) State-owned foreign carriers' pilots make "astronomically" more than the most experienced pilots in the US and therefore the most senior pilots at even Delta are leaving to go to the Middle East.
5) This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read "The most dangerous time at an airline is when they’re hiring new first officers and upgrading first officers to captains, and some airlines are perpetually locked in this cycle just trying to keep up with attrition."
I'm just going to stop. I give this article a D. His writing was full of hyperbole. He rambled and really made no point other than, "public be afraid of flying."
Also, there's a sweet link in the article to him saying TWA800 was shot down. Nothing like a little conspiracy to finish out this well thought-out exposé.