Originally Posted by
rvfanatic
To your first point. We all make choices. The 24yr old former intern in my class made a choice to bust his butt, go to an aviation school, instruct, do a great job as an intern at a major airline, and put himself in position to start a career at a major at 24. On the opposite end, the 55 year old in our class, who got his first pick of aircraft, chose to get his 20 yr military retirement first and forgo an earlier airline career before starting his 121 career.
I don't really care how the seniority numbers are determined. If airline X wants to use SSNs and effectively make it a luck process based on someone's SSN - fine. If they want to base it on age, that has a basis in logic I can accept as well. Maybe a bit more so because it makes sense. Some 55 year old guy isn't going to be around as long as the 24 year old, so putting the 55 y/o at the top of his class isn't going to affect everyone else in that class for potentially 41 years. That seems far more logical than the luck of the draw tipping the SSN scales in favor of the 24 y/o. But, I could accept either system.
What I don't care for is this underlying message that the "butt busting" and "great job" instructing somehow entitles the 24 year old to better starting seniority because he did a better job "positioning" himself for his 121 career. Dues get paid by everyone who lands a 121 job. Maybe it's busting their butt instructing, interning
or maybe it's getting their ass shot at in a fighter, military deployments around the world or multi-cruises on a carrier. In the end, we all ended up beginning a 121 career when our quals, circumstances and the industry factors aligned to create the opportunity. That's that. No one is owed a 121 career, the seniority they attain or more or less deserving of said career because of choices they made or the path their career took.