Originally Posted by
742Dash
Age or experience could be used to rank otherwise equal selection results. But HR would not like that, since it is best to hire young when faced with a long term labor shortage.
Except there ISN'T a long term labor shortage - not at the legacies, or really at any of the majors. And the CHEAPEST for the major in total lifetime personnel costs is actually to hire the OLDER guy/gal who will be maxing out his/her pay and pension for the minimum time possible.
If they can hook them with a low-pay wholly owned, keep their pay low with a long upgrade, then a long wait for flow, by the time they get to the major and start anew (at zero seniority) they wil average less overall pay, and you can always replace them with one of the major FOs (with less seniority) and then replace him/her with someone new (with zero seniority) whose been making below regional leading pay at your regional for the last 8-9 years.
American has certainly figured this out. Slow the progression from regional first officer to major retiree as much as possible and you pay out the least in personnel costs over time.
Work out the case yourself. You'll see. The decreased time anyone will ever spend at the highest part of the major payscale far more than offsets the increased training costs. Because every new FO gets their Payscale reset to year one.