Originally Posted by
Rahlifer
That's an interesting concept. The major downside I see is the eventual establishment of a "good old boys club". It happens in every other industry whether one chooses to see it or not. The utopian corporate world that pilots dream of, where everyone is treated fairly and promotions are granted solely on merit, simply does not exist. Human nature is deeply flawed and will always introduce bias into any selection process.
As if there's no "good old boys club" with seniority? I'm not saying anything is perfect, but it would be infinitely better than what we have and allow you to take your experience and value to another airline without having to "start over" at the bottom. What you are claiming would be true if every other industry used seniority, but they don't, the opposite is largely true. Modern HR departments are very objective, they have to be to prevent lawsuits, in fact, HR is an entire profession these days. You can probably come up with a million reasons why you can't or don't want to do this, because you hope one day your number will be up to that golden international 777 job, but for the same reasons thousands of pilots will never have a chance, no matter how good, smart, proficient, or knowledgeable they are. This is about allowing the best and brightest at least the chance, rather than just making it entitlement based on when you joined. It's also about being able to take your experience and abilities somewhere else and having actually mean something.