Originally Posted by
TheQuan
No.
The reason being that DOB causes a lot of seniority shuffling and erases a lot of expectations. When we were all hired at our respective airlines we could look to our retirement date and see how we would end up in seniority--career expectations. The most fair way is to use relative seniority so that we all end up fairly close to that original expectation. DOB and staple are pretty selfish ways of integration (selfish only if you qualify for senior discounts or are the stapler). IMO
I can only begin to tell you how many people I fly with whose airline pilot career "expectations" have been dashed on the rocks of this post deregulation industry... many, more than once. Here's a better question: "Does a merger increase or decrease one's career expectations?"
By the way, the date of birth idea, was only my lame attempt at a funny. I was hired at 22 by the same major I work for now 20+ years ago. 10 years of seniority went by until there was anyone younger than myself on our list. I can look at projections for retirement and rest comfortably knowing that I will be well inside of 500 for at least 15 years and retire either number 2, or with a little foul play, number 1. There I go again trying to be funny. Seems I'll never learn.