In a more simplified way. Perhaps something very much like this:

1) Pay rates should continue to be partially based on equipment size and seat type, as with today. In other words, a senior WB captain should make more than a NB captain, and so on.

2) Longevity should continue to affect pay to a certain degree. However, I would redefine the word 'longevity' as it relates to pay. Pay longevity shouldn't be based on your time at your current airline, but rather your overall commercial flying experience. There's no reason that a 20-year captain should suddenly have to go back to first-year FO wages just because that captain's airline furloughs or goes bankrupts. That's tremendously unfair to the senior guys.

So for example, your total 121/135 experience could factor into your pay. Changing airlines should not slash your pay back to 1st-year FO levels.

3) Airlines can and should be able to hire DEC's. If you've got 4000 hrs PIC in a 737, and your airline furloughs, why should you be forced to go back to 1st-year FO pay and the right seat on another airline? Let's pay people for what truly matters: their experience. Let's value that experience accordingly. That's how it's done in nearly every other industry.

4) By far the most important: your pay clock should start at the moment you report for duty, and stop when you are released. Whether you are preflighting, waiting for a reflow, flying the airplane, or deadheading...doesn't matter. It should all be paid at the same rate. So if scheduling gives me a 8-hour duty day that involves 4 hours of flying, and delays/ cancels/ reflows result in a 14-hour duty day with 1 hour of flying, I'm getting paid 14 hours. Period. Because the company is requiring me to be in airport X or on airplane Y. They are using my time, and I expect to be compensated for every minute I'm on the clock.

5) As others have stated, the current system of seniority as it affects equipment selection, base selection, and line/reserve flying should probably stay as is. But not for pay (see above).

The benefits of this system would be:

•*Senior guys won't have to suffer the indignity of a dramatic pay cut when their airline furloughs (and you know it's going to happen again when this latest economic bubble collapses. It's a virtual guarantee.) This whole 'start over at the bottom of your next airline' system only benefits one player: the airlines. I don't see how it benefits a single pilot.

• All of us will be paid for all of the time we are required to be at work.

• Airlines will be incentivized to construct the most efficient schedules possible.

What are the negatives?

•*You may have a situation where two captains on the same airline and the same equipment are getting paid significantly different rates. For example, Captain Bob has been with his airline for 15 years, has 10,000 hours of commercial flight time, and makes $200/hr. (I'm just making up numbers, so bear with me.) But Captain Pete has been with the same airline for only 1 year. He, however, has 30 years and 25,000 hours of commercial flight time, since he was just furloughed last year. However, in my system, Captain Pete would be making a higher hourly rate than Captain Bob. This would irritate Cap'n Bob. However, it's how virtually every other industry pays people – according to experience.

•*If airlines hire DECs, you'll have situations where if Airline A furloughs and Airline B hires a bunch of DECs, Airline B's senior FOs will now have their much-hoped-for upgrades delayed, because a bunch of CA slots just got filled. Again, though, that's how it works in every corporate (non-aviation) job out there. Sometimes people get hired in from the outside into positions that are senior to you, instead of you getting promoted. The usual remedy? Take your experience and use it to get a promotion at another company. Same would apply in the airlines. So in this case, if I'm a senior FO at Airline B, and a bunch of DEC's get brought in above me, I take my 10,000 hours of turbine time and go get a DEC job at Airline C.

So there's my idea. Not that it will ever be implemented. But I'd love to see folks comment on the positives and negatives of such a system...