Originally Posted by
Steve McCroskey
How is a seniority based system corrupt exactly? You get hired and wait in line, no skipping allowed.
The corruption lies in the abuse of the system by management and mainline unions hiring policies to create a forced B scale system that pilots must pass through to get to the mainline. Seniority once worked back in the old days when regionals didn't exist and mainlines lasted a long time without mergers and layoffs. Back then a low time pilot could get picked up at a mainline in his 20s and reasonably expect to spend his career there.
When I was starting out it was generally accepted that if you didn't get hired at an airline before age 30 it was too late and that you would plan stay at one airline until retirement. Back then there were no regionals...only "the commuters" that operated 15 and 19 seat turboprops under FAR 135 scheduled.
The corruption lies in the exploitation of propaganda that such a system protects pilots when in fact it's designed to keep them under management and union control.
Originally Posted by
Steve McCroskey
Honestly the best thing would be to eliminate the regional model and all of this would be eliminated all together. No more regionals taking concessions to under bid another regional and it would eliminate the top heavy regional issue. Yes there will still be issues but pay will increase for regional jet level pilots since there is absolutely no competition between two companies to fly the same route except on the mainline level which is a COMPLETELY different animal then at the regionals.
Of course I agree that the regionals are the problem. My argument is that regional airlines couldn't even exist as they are without the unions and seniority system. The business model would be impossible to implement without the control that seniority gives management over labor.
You must only kill seniority at the regional level really to kill the business model.