Originally Posted by
skypilot35
What is your defining metric for a "promotion" aka upgrade? There is no breakout for pilots. Certainly you could have Captains do evaluations on FO's and use some type of scoring system for promotion but that would be largely subjective.
Your idea to interview for the position is not rational.
I don't disagree with this but I don't think it would be an issue. In the absence of a strict seniority system, companies would still try to promote from within when possible and when practical. With such a large group of employees they would still follow a unofficial seniority rules but would not be bound by it nor would the pilots. Allowing the flexibility of going outside the structure when needed...such as is needed now in the current regional airline environment.
Currently we are upgrading approximately 30 pilots per month. We have approximately 1700 FO's. Let's say 850 apply for the position and of those 850, 300 are chosen for an interview. Only 30 will be given the promotion. This would have to be done every month. This means that if you are an FO who meets the "promotion" requirements you'd have to ensure that you were available on the day of the interview. Given the current ops tempo, not gonna happen and consequently unfair.
This is why it's unlikely that such a scenario would ever exist in a large company with many employees. The process would be more granular.
The seniority system works for the purpose of upgrade. It works for the purpose of commuting. It does not work for the purpose of changing companies. If pilots could move on to a better company without having to "start over" (take a huge pay cut right up the A$$), then we would not have so much stagnation at the upper tiers of the regionals.
You're saying it is though you think it's a bad thing to have stagnation at the top end of regionals? I think what would happen is the position of captain of a regional jet would naturally demand higher pay for professional and experienced captains rather than being used as a stepping stone to go back to FO for a larger airline. The regionals would also be able to hire experienced pilots directly rather than upgrading very low experienced first officers who may have only been there for a few years.
It would also eliminate stagnation for first officers at regionals because the regionals would be competing for type rated and current pilots and the ability to move laterally to the airline that is currently hiring would be a huge incentive for the airlines to try to keep those first officers with higher second and third year salaries.
First Officers would probably spend more time as first officers and starting pay for low time first officers probably would be similar to what it is now but airlines would hire higher time first officers as well but at higher pay in order to create a more diverse pool of experience.
Eventually it would level the field and the regional model would fade away as an industry B scale and pilots would simply work for different airlines which would no longer be able to separate costs by outsourcing flights to low cost carriers.
If anyone things I'm wrong about that then my argument is how can it possibly get any worse?
We, as pilots, need to cherry pick the things that are good and discard the rest. The payscale should be commensurate with experience i.e. flight time. We should not be penalized so harshly for moving to a better company or moving for a better QOL.
If Sullenberger was hired at Skywest today he'd be paid $24 / hr.
Most pilots would agree with this I think.