The circle of life. LCAL had a captain show up for a 777 trip to be greeted by 3 FOs still on probation. Fully qualified and typed, but he raised the “issue” later and the company started an informal study about why senior pilots weren’t bidding junior lines, including having a 2-year captain on the 737. Everyone but the leadership knew the answer—horrendous work rules that are always scale tougher as juniority increases. Duh. The economy crashed before “they” figured it out. Problem solved.

Now it’s just because of growth I suppose.