Originally Posted by
germanaviator
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.
Another thing I noticed in Europe with this level of entitlement is European pilots feel charter work on twin piston, turboprops etc is beneath them.
They all have shiny jet syndrome and feel somebody owes them a 320 job instead of going to Africa, Aus etc and doing charter to build time like you do in the U.S.
If I was a chief pilot and some guy came to me and said he would pay for 500 hours line training he would never get a job at my airline. Those guys really are bottom feeders as far as I'm concerned as they are ruining the industry for everybody else.