Not every country/airline has "rigorous pilot training and selection" -- US airlines require around 5x the number of flight hours as non-US. There are, generally, not enough pilots.
See:
It’s not a mystery where these pilots were licensed.
If true it does have some signal but it’s not entirely persuasive. After all there clearly are midwit pilots too with a lot of flight hours, who just manage to scrape by on each step of the way.
Edit: Who may very well perform worse in extremus than a less experienced genius pilot.
South Korea requires 250 hours as a country (6x), and Jeju Air specifically requires 300 (5x): https://epicflightacademy.com/hiring-requirements-jeju-air/#...)
Although the US airways system is much more developed and used than Korea's, given that Korea is a smaller country and has an extensive bullet-train network. So I could buy an argument where US pilots just fly more.
In the 1990s Korea and Taiwan had issues with accidents caused by military pilots without modern crew management cultures (“never question the captain”, which is a big no in modern commercial aviation), so they went with more career pilots trained from scratch (at American schools) rather than just transitioning military pilots into the role.
The US FAA has required 1500 flight hours to receive an ATP (airline pilot) certificate since 2010: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
South Korea requires 250 hours as a country (6x), and Jeju Air specifically requires 300 (5x): https://epicflightacademy.com/hiring-requirements-jeju-air/#...)
The difference is drastic indeed. I almost would qualify for Jeju Air.