Here's an interesting historical change to Delta's policy (years ago) that has had a big impact for me to discuss while we wait for the backdoor to open on the bids.

I met another FO jumpseating home a few weeks ago, same base and category and senior to me. He was maybe 12-14 years younger than me, and said he came into Delta directly from corporate at a young age. I'm a mil background guy, so I expect I had a 12 year-ish delay compared to his start here in age.
Anyways, we got talking and he says that in his initial class, when they assigned seniority numbers, they went by age--oldest guys first. In MY class, they went by social security # as a means to do some "random" acceptable system... but it made me be #40 of 42 in the class, and 6-9 of those folks are on the FO list above me at my base (at any given time), moving me 8-10% down the list... so it's a BIG thing actually.

You'd think a 40# difference would dilute itself out over a large list, but it turns out that everyone at the same spot of the list is thinking the same thing in terms of bid-power vs. quality of life, and on the 6 categories I'd even look at, there are approx 7 each of my classmates sitting just above me... at the bottom line holder of a list area, that is the difference between a decent commutable line and sloppy-seconds-what's-left-redeye-weekend-non-commutable-hell. And then to sit there without moving for 11 years living with the same randomly-generated QOL difference... well, it's annoying.

It seems to me that, while some system has to be employed to rack and stack new classes in seniority, randomly getting boofed by SSAN when different methods were used before is not good. I think using first some sort of test scores from class would be the most fair--basing the stacking by merit. If no such objective scores exist, then I'd go with who sent their resume in first, or date/timestamp of their employment offer--first come first serve. After that I think going by age, oldest first, is more fair than random... come on, some guy 10 years younger than me can afford 40 seniority #s more than I randomly can. No matter what method you pick, someone is going to complain, but this one would be supportable maybe. Probably open them up to age discrimination suit.

Anyways, just a wondering how it was done in the past, how it's being done now. I did hear that someone had sued for the process used for giving seniority #s on initial class, but don't know if that's true or what their position was, or the results. Anyone know?