You're right... they did upgrade a few lucky junior folks before releasing the seatlocks. They probably saw a repeat of the avro scenario that transpired years ago with it going incredibly junior. Releasing seatlocks was the way to prevent a huge portion of the 900 fleet being captained by new hires. And that was happening by default, because of seatlocks imposed. Had there been no seatlocks, the 900 would have naturally gone senior.

Yes, many came to this company with prior airline experience, but the vast majority of new hires did not. And it was only until the second wave of hiring did our newhire spots get filled with furloughed folks from other airlines. Further, don't you think seniority matters? Does it make any kind of logical sense to have the highest paying fleet captained by many of the junior pilots, while experienced senior folks are trapped in a seatlock on the saab, some artificially? I know the junior folks were salivating at not having to do their time on the saab and some lucky ones got their wish. The rest however are now ticked off because seniority prevailed and the seatlocks were released.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm just approaching the situation from a different perspective. Once again... the company actually saw a benefit it spending more money and they did so. Unfortunately, they're in a pickle that they didn't predict.