Painting with quite a broad brush there Egg320, don't you think?

I fly for a big EU operator and my colleagues are from military, airline and G/A as well as some former cadets. They are good pilots and do have hand flying skills. Sure, there is a risk with highly automated airplanes that one loses those skills but if the operators are aware and encourage manual flying t stay current as well as including it in recurrent training programs, those risks can be mitigated. Many major airlines have run cadet programs with great success. They tend to work because just like in the military the selection and training are very tough and far exceed minimum legal requirements. Now, pay2fly is a different story together and I hate it as much as the next guy.

Anyway, all these points are somewhat beside the point here. It will be interesting to see if foreign pilots will be part(!) of the solution (along with significant pay rises at the regionals) of the looming pilot shortage.