Originally Posted by
Burn it Down
Could someone in the know please tell me the most junior captain line holder's seniority (DOH) systemwide? Looks to me like they've put the current deal together right for the max benefit of all. Still, I've never met a DEC I really wanted to trade places with. How much misery should one expect (for how long)?
Thanks in advance
That information would be outdated by the time I'd be done typing the message.
long story short, as a DEC you would be junior for about two years (until FOs hired with you start upgrading), but holding A line (vs a good line) is a function of having people below you. If you are the last DEC hired, life will suck. If you are on the front side of the wave, it'll be alright.
life sucked the most for the DECs that had seniority to go from a junior airplane to a 175 for better trips etc, but that was also the airplane everyone senior was upgrading into (figure 4ish years of reserve including the pandemic effect)
there were CRJ DECs holding a line within 3-4 months if not less, just based on how a bunch of them got put on it in a very tight time frame. The junior portion of that bunch, naturally, never saw a line.
all that being said, the current "DEC spot" is a OCL - ORD 175 CA - so the results will be mixed. On one hand, there's about 320ish people that might want to take the spot at some point and be senior to you (ORD 175 FOs, 145 CAs and FOs), on the other - not all of them will. There's 60ish people hired a month, anyone's guess how many of them are DEC eligible - figure some of them will become the junior captains.
All in all, expect 1.5-2 years of reserve. It will very likely be less than that, depending on where you are in the wave, but that's a good pessimistic number to keep in mind.