OK, so you're debating this? I'm not sure if you're trying to make my point, or yours.

It's a lot more economical to furlough when the bottom of each category contains the junior pilot, than in an airline that's perfectly stovepiped. If you need to cut overall flying 20% (i.e. after 9/11), and you look at the 20% junior pilots, you find that (oops), that's 100% of you maddog F/O's, and 50% of your A320 F/O's. Now what? Well, you have to displace. The 88 F/O's "displace" to the street. The A320 guys to the 88, etc. Until enough displacements have occured, you can't operate the 80% of the 88 flying you still wish to perform, and you don't have enough for the A320 either. So you weigh this carefully. You look at the entire list, and ou calculate the cost of displacing 20% of the entire system, from the top fleet on down, and you have a powerful dissincentive to pull the trigger if you won't have enough time on furlough to recoup your costs.

This is why we didn't furlough in 2008: it wasn't worth it.

If you have a system that isn't stovepiped at all, all F/O's distributed somewhat evenly, depending on where they live, the flying they like, etc. The junior 20% of all pilots makes up about 40% of all F/O categories (I'm assuming we have the same number of A's and B's). Now, you don't need to wait until you have to retrain 80% of your 88 F/O's (the total flying you were performing, minus the 20% you don't want). You only need to train 20% of your 88 B's (40% of the guys getting furloughed, minus 20% cut in flying). The great news? You're displacing 20% of the Captains, too. And, better yet, 20% of your 88 Captains are already trained. Since you're in a LBP situation, chances are they're flying the 88 because they like it, so the geography and the flying already floats their boat. And since they won't make more money by displacing to a senior WB category (LBP for all, remember?), then they might as well stay as 88 B's. What's the downside?

So, under our existing rules, it takes months to get everyone on the street, and the replacements trained. Under a LBP sytem, the entire airline is potentially set up properly to chop off the bottom X % of any and all categories, no questions asked. Send the certified letters, and it's done!

So to answer you hypothetical about the 737 guy and the A320 guy, the answer is that the 737 under a LBP sytem wouldn't be senior or junior to the A320 guy, and since it's easy to chop off 20% of either category, he'd stay put. One less training event. One less cost to be factored in against a furlough.

This is the stuff that would have made Kolshack cream his pants. And Burns too, whatever she has in her pants.