Originally Posted by
NotOldNotYoung
Bump and flush is far from the good old days. I’m not sure we want to go back to that system. It allowed a bunch of guys who passed voluntarily on opportunities to upgrade or go to the seat they wanted during the good times (ex: last bid 21-01) and then use the bad times (bid 23-01) to force people out of seats that they had bid to and gone to training for. More people were forced into training as a result. When you go to training and endure all that comes with it, you don’t expect to be bumped out just because another guy has buyers remorse. I’m sorry you can’t use your seniority to bump somebody out of a seat that they bid for and held on the last bid (and you could have held also) and it may seem frustrating to you that guys junior to you might be able to go to a seat you want. However, those individuals are being forced from their seat or they are in a seat that is overmanned and so they’re choosing to go to keep somebody else from getting forced out of that seat. If enough people bid to your seat as the process plays out, your seat can become overmanned and the senior guys in that seat can choose to bid out or junior guys get forced out.
Just because Fedex decides to reduce manning in some seats at the airline does not mean it is a free-for-all and anybody can go to any seat that their seniority holds. That would be stupid like bump and flush was stupid. At your seniority you could have bid to almost if not every seat on the last bid.
Fortune favors the bold. Go to the seat you want when you can. You never know when you’ll hold it again.
The problem that I see (especially since I'm caught up in this part of what's going on) is that I'm willing to leave my over manned seat so the junior folks don't get knocked off. Problem is I'm not junior enough in the seat to get assigned (displaced). So I have to use the seniority of someone (not sure who this "someone" is) JUNIOR to me to make the move. This seems pretty crappy to me. I chose to move at the appropriate time into my current seat, am now willing to move again to keep junior folks on the plane from getting bumped but because I have to use THEIR seniority, NOT my own I can't hold the TO position I want. Meanwhile, folks junior to me (other fleets/bases) who are being assigned (displaced) are using their own seniority (which is lower than mine) to take the seat I'd like to move to. Going forward I now either have to stay in my current seat with even worse seniority due to the junior folks getting assigned off the bottom and hope to get assigned (displaced) myself in the next go round or move to one of the available fleets that don't require all of this to get to (ie aren't overmanned) and possibly be stuck there for years because all of the next bids will look just like this one.