At least for awhile as they continue to grow they certainly can. As long as you are growing at the rate of 15-17% per year, as was happening preCOVID, half your pilots are in the bottom three years of longevity for pay purposes. At many of the legacies well over half of all the pilots are over 12 years. Take Delta. The junior CAs at MSP and SEA were 2008 hires, and they are soon going to be having 4-5% of their personnel hitting mandatory retirement age. United is similar. AA is even worse. Even if NK had identical pay scales the payroll would STILL be much less because half the FOs would be under four years longevity and half the CAs would be under eight years longevity. As long as you are quickly expanding the pilot group you have a huge advantage over pilot groups that have reached a steady state where most pilots are over 12 year longevity.