Southwest is working on reducing the amount of 717s we get. :)

CEN13LA004

Here's an interesting historical change to Delta's policy (years ago) that has had a big impact for me to discuss while we wait for the backdoor to open on the bids.

I met another FO jumpseating home a few weeks ago, same base and category and senior to me. He was maybe 12-14 years younger than me, and said he came into Delta directly from corporate at a young age. I'm a mil background guy, so I expect I had a 12 year-ish delay compared to his start here in age.
Anyways, we got talking and he says that in his initial class, when they assigned seniority numbers, they went by age--oldest guys first. In MY class, they went by social security # as a means to do some "random" acceptable system... but it made me be #40 of 42 in the class, and 6-9 of those folks are on the FO list above me at my base (at any given time), moving me 8-10% down the list... so it's a BIG thing actually.

You'd think a 40# difference would dilute itself out over a large list, but it turns out that everyone at the same spot of the list is thinking the same thing in terms of bid-power vs. quality of life, and on the 6 categories I'd even look at, there are approx 7 each of my classmates sitting just above me... at the bottom line holder of a list area, that is the difference between a decent commutable line and sloppy-seconds-what's-left-redeye-weekend-non-commutable-hell. And then to sit there without moving for 11 years living with the same randomly-generated QOL difference... well, it's annoying.

It seems to me that, while some system has to be employed to rack and stack new classes in seniority, randomly getting boofed by SSAN when different methods were used before is not good. I think using first some sort of test scores from class would be the most fair--basing the stacking by merit. If no such objective scores exist, then I'd go with who sent their resume in first, or date/timestamp of their employment offer--first come first serve. After that I think going by age, oldest first, is more fair than random... come on, some guy 10 years younger than me can afford 40 seniority #s more than I randomly can. No matter what method you pick, someone is going to complain, but this one would be supportable maybe. Probably open them up to age discrimination suit.

Anyways, just a wondering how it was done in the past, how it's being done now. I did hear that someone had sued for the process used for giving seniority #s on initial class, but don't know if that's true or what their position was, or the results. Anyone know?

Is this in addition to the MCF refund already being processed?

Roadkill, most of the fNWA captains I've flown with said age was the discriminator as you say. I'm not sure about fDAL, but I'll bet it was the same. I was given the last four of SSN for ranking seniority as well. I would prefer to have age taken into account, but I'm not complaining.

BTW - did my first airline app recommendation for a friend. :D

so 87 717s? if that one is made airworthy, let it come last. :eek:

That's acceptable. All they have to do is....

Yep, I'd love to do that. Would be slightly quicker, but I'm not getting FPL to sit at home and cherry-pick the contract. I have to work to support my family (and yours too, apparently, via my dues money). Wow, reading your propaganda, it's almost as if we didn't give anything up. Is that your assertion?

I'd say the real numbers will be much more apparent to all of us over the next few months, and beyond. Can't wait to see how you'll spin that.

Back when I was hired by DAL/WAL in 87 we were assigned seniority numbers by age. I considered that a very fair way to do it (I was in the middle of the class btw) and was sorry to hear they went to using social security numbers.

As a Jan 01 hire, our class was done by age. It wasn't until we started hiring again in 07 that it was changed to SSN because of an age discrimination lawsuit.

The suit must have been between 01 and 07, because all the classes in 07 were SSN from the get go (even though in august the order was reversed due to a misinterpretation of "highest to lowest.")

Most of the people got some money out of it after the reordering of the classes that had previously run, but I didn't get any since my class just rotated around me. :)