Originally Posted by NuGuy

If you were older than average (and NWA tended to an older demographic), with just a little longevity, the point cliff hit pretty hard. The opposite, with a younger guy but with more time worked out better because there was a bit more time to recapture it with a flat DC.

The peak hiring was in mid-98 in that cycle. If you managed to get in before that, you tended to do relatively better. DC-9 captains just before the age-65 thing made it into mid-98 before the big re-wind. After that, you were locked into whatever it was you were doing for a long time.