I don't think a flow will solve the issues at DCI in general or PCL in particular. And its not just heartburn over a few guys that might not have degrees or that didn't get a certain score on some arbitrary test. But even a few known quantities on the front of something like this that would publicly curse the company and make a scene in uniform because they didn't get past the interview (possibly not even close either) is more than enough for any airline to say no way to a 100% seniority order flow. You want to blame someone for it, blame them.

Besides that though, with the amount of hiring we're seeing and going to see, any applicant with a good attitude and good (not perfect) record that networks and actively manages their career (more than just showing up to fly a schedule then going home and waiting for the phone to ring off the hook) will already have an excellent chance of getting hired somewhere better than most regionals. If they enacted a straight seniority order flow, that would slow/prevent as many pilots from going as it helped in any given year anyway.

You can point to the CPZ flow as one of the more successful ones, and you'd be right on the surface. They (for now) have a fairly good operation relatively speaking, and are one of the few that are able to staff it plus possibly some expansion. Much of that can be attributed to the flow. It keeps some people there for the flow and the attrition above them. But that model just doesn't scale to the entire industry.

The real issue with the regionals is they need to pay more and offer a higher QOL to attract and retain not only existing pilots but new ones to the industry. With very few exceptions, more than offset by examples to the contrary, regionals aren't expanding. So even flow though, if enacted industry wide, would just end up resulting in stovepipe stagnation to a significant extent. Once all the musical chairs are pulled (and there aren't that many left anyway) the only "growth" will be at the regionals trying to poach from one another with faster growth/upgrades/*gasp* under a year on reserve/etc.

And they still wouldn't solve the core issue: bottom end supply. IOW, new pilots into the industry. So far the legacies only plan has been to lobby for reduced minimums associated with extremely expensive "ivy league" aviation colleges, and that isn't going to cut it.

They need to address that it doesn't and never should cost 6 figures to get your ratings and none of them ever need to come in million dollar all glass trainers anyway. A4A's next step is going to be to lobby for even lower mins if time is coupled with "advanced simulators" etc which again does nothing to curtail the insanely high costs of degrees and flight training these days.

They need to partner with ALPA/CAPA and others to lobby for a new, better general aviation revitalization act. Enact better energy policies that rely on America long term rather than short term OPEC manipulation. Airlines need to invest in flight schools that emphasise mission oriented experience building in cheap round dial airplanes instead of completely unnecessary million dollar pistons. They need to screen and manage their regionals better. A cheaper bottom feeder RFP is no longer the clear winner. They need to continue and accelerte the trend of reducing the pilot/block hour size of regionals, and abandon their sick pathetic outdated MBA hack fantasies of endlessly growing airplanes there.

Flows can help here or there, but they are not some kind of universal solution and if applied across the board they cause almost as many problems as they solve, even if they do "work".