I fully understand the envy from those who had to pay their dues and endure years of poor jobs on their way up.

With that said, and removing any discussion of money out of it, the fact remains that if the training is done to the right standard, and taught to subjects of the right calibre, there is absolutely no argument to pretend it would be less safe than the traditional US industry model.

QANTAS, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, KLM, Lufthansa, Air NZ, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, JAL and many more have ab-initio training programmes. Countless others will take guys fresh out of flying school.

There is no safer 'bucket' of airlines than those listed above. The driving force behind that is the standard of training and the calibre of the individual.

We all know high time guys that are next to useless, and low time guys that have genuine talent and natural airmanship. Time means little. Similarly, if the B6 training is crap, or they aren't recruiting the right guys into the programme, it will be a disaster.

Some of the above training programmes are entirely free of charge, others require the student to pay up front. The financial aspect is a different argument all together - and driven entirely by supply and demand. As mentioned, we could see the legacy carriers offering fully paid up cadetships in the future, if the economy and industry continue to flourish.

That may seem novel in the US, but to the rest of the world, it really isn't.