Thanks for doing some data mining - it’s pretty interesting indeed. Obviously every base will look quite a bit different. And 10% was pulled out of someone’s arse, because as we’ve seen and heard Silver Slips are being had at other seniorities too - sometimes relatively junior.

If you’re generally curious why people are okay with breaking the mold (as I am), it’s because other molds were also broken. We imagined a world in which premium pay could be had with enough notice to live a more normal life complete with the ability to plan family activities, commutes and kid care. And that imagination was answered by the negotiating committee. Many of us like the model, and I’ve never had a silver slip myself.

How frequently do we think an ultra-senior pilot is flying a full schedule of premium pay, for a majority of the bid months in a year? Are there four pilots out of 17,500? A couple dozen? If this premium pay is so concentrated in so few pilots, then dispersing it with a leveling mechanism is only going to add a singular green slip to a handful of other pilots - big deal. And if there are enough silver slips to disperse to make a significant difference to a large quantity of other pilots…well that could only mean they couldn’t have been too concentrated to begin with.

For every ultra-senior Captain who drops a full schedule of desirable trips into open time or the swap board…are we capturing the schedule-improvement benefit of his subordinate pilots? For every ultra-senior FO who stays put and allows others to upgrade sooner - are we capturing that too?