I continue to read about the changes that may or may not be coming to the aviation industry. I hear calls from experts, non-experts, politicians, the media and passengers for a higher standard. The notion of safety cannot be ignored and is paramount in all of our everyday lives, this is understandable for the career that we chose. And I recognize there is a problem, but what is the solution?

I say this because a majority of the solutions being provided deal with first hiring, and then training. But, by making pilot records more accessible, lengthening the period of a background check from 5-10 years, increasing the aviation/nonaviation pre-hiring academic requirments, increasing experience minimums, and increasing regulation etc., have we found the answer? In essence, make the job harder to get and more stressfull once hired. Logically this would raise the standard of pilot. But at the same time, if the wage stays the same, or heaven forbid, drops... where are we now? You want to increase hiring requirements and increase regulation, while paying the low wages we have today? This, I hope, we can all agree is not the answer! These two ideas must slide together, an increase in one should create an increase in the other.

I recently was talking with a senior mainline Captain. His comment was, "it takes someone special to become a pilot, not everyone can do this job well. But the people that can, are smart enough to choose another career." I completely agree. Just some food for thought.