My personal opinion is that your seniority allows you the opportunity to bid for the seat in the first place, and then we train in seniority order, and that is it.

However, if somebody junior to you has the wherewithal to solicit and receive a trade for an earlier date then it should be a slam dunk to allow the trade. It is no skin off your nose and two people's quality of life has just been given a boost. Are we so petty as to prevent others from benefiting just because we don't get a cut of it? Really?

A swap is a no brainer win win in my opinion. Absolutely you may swap. Maybe some day I will need a swap in order to make a kid's wedding, a wife's birthday, a family reunion, who knows. Its the only way we have to control our destiny once we hit the training letter. Until we change the CBA to bid for training slots, all swaps are ok by me.

The only possible downside I have ever seen with a swap was a guy who was worried about the activation of a junior pilot that was going to trigger his passover pay who wanted to swap for a later date. The guy who objected was a flex at the end of the letter waiting for that guy to activate so his passover would start. There were others who would also trigger it in the same slot, but he was still reluctant. Eventually he agreed to the swap.

Had that been the only guy on the training letter who would trigger the passover pay it might have been a different story, that would have been a tough one and I doubt the guy would have changed his mind.

It wasn't me, I would have given the ok either way, that is just the kind of guy I am.