Those pilots were hired AFTER the ones they are senior to. That's how seniority works. People hired after you are junior to you.

We all understand the argument to ignore any longevity and just go 1-for-1 because CAL was a 4,700 pilot airline and UAL a 7,500 pilot airline. And your guys had the biggest set of cajones I've ever seen to present that as their choice and really try to push for it. Maybe since you're so level headed you needed to tell those guys "Hey maybe we shouldn't try to put our furloughed pilots ahead of their current Captains. They were profitable for the last 9 quarters and we've lost over $1B in that same time frame." You were probably too busy trying to figure out how long it would take you to move up to 747 Captain though.

You can cry conspiracy all you want, but those pilots were pilots at United long before October 1st, 2010 and they deserved to not have their seniority ignored.

Its done. None of us are happy with it, it must have been the right decision.