Actually, daldude, when the airline shrinks without replacements, assuming the pilots that are senior are also older, everyone except the last pilot gets an improvement in relative seniority.

If you're 9,000 out of 12,000, you're at 75%. If 3,000 retire, with no replacements, you get to be 6,000 out of 9,000, or 67%. When you retire, you're then 1 out of 3,000, or about .01% of... a big pile of sh$t.

Not much consolation, of course.