Anonymous

Cumbria

IT

Hmm, a well known phrase involving black, pot, and kettle comes to mind !

While I agree with what Mr Coby says, he works for a large airline which seems oblivious to what it (along with the rest of the airline industry) is doing to the 'grass roots' of flying - the very sector from which a good propertion of it's pilots come from.

The airlines have over the last few years been on a campaign to shift costs from themselves to private and small business flyers - costs which I might add often arise from the fact that the airlines have huge chunks of airspace from which the small guys are excluded.

I don't disagree with having controlled airspace as it makes for significant safety benefits. What I have a problem with is that the small flyer is excluded from big chunks of airspace for the benefit of the airlines - and then the airlines expect us to pay more than our share for services (such as radar information) to help mitigate the problems (some of them serious safety problems themselves) caused by the existence of this controlled airspace.

The result of this and other changes (which were also for the airlines benefit) is a huge increase in costs with a corresponding reduction in the number of private and small business pilots. So where do BA expect to get their pilots from ? Simple, they'll do what the IT industry has been doing for the last few years - claim a shortage and expect the government to allow them to import lots of cheap labour from elsewhere !

It's a practice we've seen done with IT and healthcare - but expecially with healthcare, I personally think it's nothing more than institutional theft to go poaching medical staff from poorer countries. These countries have invested significant value in training these staff - only to have them poached to wealthier countries who arguably have less need of them.