Originally Posted by
FlyJSH
Delta didn't own Pinnacle back then. Now that it does, there is an incentive to prune some of the high year folks. And now that some of these high year folks are commuting, it will be easier for them to justify going back to the bottom of a seniority list. Delta gets to cherry pick from the upper half of the seniority list and, assuming there will eventually be hiring here, replace them with zero year guys.
The SSP isn't doing anybody any favors, Delta is cutting costs.
Incentive to prune? That's already been done with a 12 year cap. It doesn't matter if one is a 12 year guy or a 25 year guy, they make the same now. I don't have the 9E seniority list in front of me (though I can access it), but I'm sure a HUGE portion of those CAs are already capped at 12 year mark. So the costs are still the same for all the senior side.
Replace with zero year guys? The SSP will only get Captains to Delta. When a 9E Captain leaves, a 9E FO gets to upgrade (assuming no Colgan career expectant takes his spot). There are 2007 FOs at 9E that still haven't upgraded. These guys are on 7th year pay this year! By the time they upgrade, it is very likely they will be on 10-12 year pay. So in the end, you replace a 12-th scale Captain (could be a 20 year guy) with a 10-12 year FO. So what have you really saved? The company will still have many 12th year scale Captains for time to come. Most 9E FOs from 2007, 2008, and 2010 will be approaching the 9-12 year mark for captain upgrade.
As for true zero year guys, those are the newhire FOs. I can't imagine anyone being silly enough to come to 9E when it's already announced to be an 81 airplane endstate. Shrinking fleet means no advancement opportunities for newhire FOs. They are far better off going to the regional airline that now has 53 E170s for AA, or Silver Airways.