It seems a huge part of the problem is a lot of the 50ish year old captains upgraded in 5 years and have almost been a captain during their entire Alaska career. Now they see the end of their career coming and only care about maxing out their pensions. They could careless about all the new hires career protection. They would rather get a pay raise even if the our flying shrunk cause once they leave all that matters is Alaska being around to pay their pension.