Originally Posted by
HSLD
This is always a good discussion and a difficult choice because it involves sacrifice.
For those against PFT, at least for the short term there are VERY few lenders willing to make loans for commercial pilot traning. Training demand is down and so is the financiing for prospective pilots so who knows what that will do in the short term and at the rebound.
I don't quite understand all of the driving economic forces/artificial forces driving the relatively low wages for pilots, but I do believe that PFT is not the single largest contributing issue - merely a product of several issues not addressed.
Personally I don't believe in PFT, simply because it is generally not a good investment based on opportunity costs, etc. But, playing the devil's advocate could provide for a balanced discussion.
You brought up a great point about the credit markets.
More regulation usually equals more required subsidy, and more subsidy requires more regulation (I'm not saying transportation regulation is all together bad, just that it comes with a cost). In my very amateur opinion, what seemed like an open credit market (artificially) certainly added to the PFT fire, and as a byproduct produced more competition amongst more qualified pilots, thereby reducing collective wages. In a parallel circumstance, airlines that existed, perhaps, because of open-ended credit markets as well as "bail-outs", increased competition amongst themselves and collectively lowered prices/wages.
I suppose the auto industry will see lower wages as a result of subsidy, in a slightly different circumstance.