Originally Posted by
Adlerdriver
I'm not sure I'm following your logic regarding seniority. Pilots hired behind you don't do that much for your actual seniority. Pilots retiring ahead of you do that. If you are #100 out of 100, you have 99 bubbas ahead of you choosing schedules, vaca, upgrades, etc. If the company hires another 100 behind you and isn't drastically expanding and no one retires, then that just means they were undermanned when they hired you and there are still 99 folks ahead of you picking all the stuff you might want. Sure, you went from 100% to 50% in the seat, but that doesn't change the "buying power" you have with your seniority.
If there were 99 captain seats available when you got hired and that didn't change, then those 100 pilots hired behind you did absolutely nothing to get you any closer to one of those left seats. Pilots hired behind you are just a furlough buffer and give the company more options in properly manning the airline. That may end up making things better for you but that's not the same a pilots leaving ahead of you.
Yep. My post is in context to the poster I responded to. And of course there isn’t an airline in existence where no one is retiring because we are all getting one day closer to that date. So that is not even a consideration in this context. Both airlines have pilots currently retiring into the future. And like you said, there is something to be said for furlough fodder, especially in the passenger industry. So that should be a consideration for him. One of his concerns was losing about three years seniority. But there wasn’t any hiring for almost 14 months and the airline has shrunk, hence the excess pilots. So if he decides to go back, he has a few pilots (I guess about a years worth) below him and many (those still not retired) ahead of him. Contrast that with if he comes here, he has none below him and all ahead of him. Essentially the difference in the two choices is that one he has some below him and both have many ahead of him. That’s why I only mentioned those below him. Thats the big difference between the two, in terms of seniority. That’s the context in which I wrote that post.
Other than that, I agree 100% that QOL is mostly due to relative seniority going up.