Originally Posted by tomgoodman

Disconnecting pay from seniority is a pretty radical idea, but maybe we need to consider it. There would certainly be some objections. First, companies would have to be forced to hire the high-wage veterans instead of low-wage rookies. No incumbents would be displaced, but it would "lock in" a pay inversion (reverse B-scale). There would be an internal battle over the next contract proposal, with senior, lower-paid pilots wanting parity, and junior, better-paid pilots saying "you still have less years of experience than I do." The company might say "forget it -- nobody gets a pay raise, because we had to spend it all on the new-hires."

Although the pay-for-experience idea has some definite merits for the profession as a whole, I doubt that any individual company or pilot group will voluntarily take in "refugees" except at the bottom of the seniority and pay scales. (Unless, of course, the refugees bring some nice airplanes with them).

Originally Posted by Lab Rat

I think the biggest issue with this is the fact that interpreting experience is very subjective. For example, who is more experienced among a 2,000 hour carrier-based fighter pilot, a 7,000 hour regional jet captain, and a 5,000 hour 747 first officer? I don't think one can definitively point to a set of criteria and arrive at a black-and-white answer on that one because there are just too many variables to consider.

I know people with low time and years of flying who are great aviators as well as people with 10 times the experience but half the common sense. Sometimes experience cannot be measured quantitatively.

The way the system is set up now is in fact paying you based on experience. Experience, for the most part gets you the interview. You submit an application based on hours and level(s) of experience and that leads you to a job (seniority number). Hopefully the job lasts, but unless one has a crystal ball it is impossible to tell. We make the best decisions that we can with the information we have available.

What you are proposing sounds like a "plan B" in case the first plan falls through. That proposal in fact may do more harm than good with regards to hiring. In this hypothetical situation, most managers would assume hire a low experienced person because the pay would be much lower for the same type of work.