Originally Posted by
LumberJack
How is swapping an ATL320A with a DTW320A detrimental to seniority? I can see what you mean with the list in those two bases getting shifted slightly depending on the relative seniorities of the captains, but it's a wash overall. And now you have two happy pilots where before you had two stuck pilots.
It's done at other airlines, we just haven't implemented it yet.
And again, what would the company care if those two captains swapped? It doesn't change anything other than vacation. If your vacation is available in the new base, you keep it, if not, you pick from available weeks. It's very straight forward.
That abrogates seniority. Assume the MD is not closed in NY or CVG, say a 4-month ATL CA MD88 just base swaps with a CVG MD88 CA, who is a 12+ year guy. Now this 4 month CA is in CVG would be holding a spot that his seniority in no way allowed otherwise, and all the CVG MD FOs who wanted a CVG CA slot would be out of luck. A true "base swap" does hurt the concept of seniority-based vacancies.
At most airlines, a vacancy has to exist first.