Not for over a decade... well before the MAD.

Enough said.

I suspect that's how many numbers you "dropped" because that's how many LCAL pilots were placed in front of you on the list. Those LCAL pilots brought seats with them. Let's look at this from another (rational) perspective. What percentage were you in the company before and after the merger? What does that percentage allow you to hold? What percentage will you retire at? What will that percentage allow you to hold? What does your "rainbow chart" look like per and post SLI? I can give you my numbers as a mid-seniority CAL pilot. About 4,000 LUAL pilots were placed in front of me. My system percentage went down by over five percent. I probably won't be able to bid any captain positions in another historically CAL base for 2-3 years, even though I could have held those positions continuously from '07 to the present. If my present base shrinks... I lose seniority. If my present base grows... I lose seniority (LUAL pilots bidding in). My retirement number goes from the low three digits to over tripled into the low four digits. I went from retiring as a WB (admittedly 767/787 not 777) captain in a "stovepipe" bid, to retiring as a 757 captain. Though I haven't seen it, I'm told my "rainbow chart" comparison is flat our ugly.

All of us have some claim to getting the short end of the stick whether it be someone hired after you is now senior to you (I'm senior to pilots hired almost two years before me at UAL), or your career progression is well behind what it once was because of the SLI (true in my case). Many have spent years on furlough... twice... and my "plight" as a never furloughed lineholding captain for the last seven years doesn't compare to theirs. I'm a UAL pilot now, it's in the past and I hold no bitterness to anyone... until they start spewing BS about how they got screwed when they didn't. The only thing worse than a gloating winner is one who won and cries about how he deserved even more.