I hate to break it to you, but you are the one seeing in tunnel vision.

Seniority. You are not a person, you are a number. When SkyWest switches to a merit based award system, then awarding upgrades / removing seatlocks randomly is perfectly acceptable. As long as SkyWest is on a seniority based system, awarding upgrades/removing seat-locks out of seniority is completely unacceptable.....under any circumstances.

Bases open and close all the time. If the person is not prepared to deal with the consequences of this, then they need to find a different job.

SkyWest pilots need a union, and soon.