Absolutely that happens. All The time. But, from management’s perspective, they chose what they believed to be the "best" candidate--not just the next in line. It's always true that no matter how hard you work or how good you really are, the owner’s kid will get the job/promotion before you do.

The seniority system does a lot of good things. It (theoretically anyway) helps keep management from threatening pilots who make safety decisions that cost money (won't fly with a maintenance issue, divert, take extra gas, call in sick/fatigued, etc.)

This system, while inherently good when taken in its entirety, has a downside: You can't change companies without starting at the bottom

 

having worked for non union airlines who promote out of seniority I certainly didn't find it a good thing from the safety standpoint. Be ready to ignore mx issues , duty limits and better not be late blocking out.

I know that each of us is this great aviator being held back by all those ahead of us on the list but maybe just maybe that isn't so. In a large organization of thousands how on earth would one determine who was the best? Best at what?


Who is the best pilot here?

A non union pilot who works all day in the office then takes off to fly a 14:30 duty period at night hoping his F/O is rested and can take up the slack? Or the union guy who wants more gas although the minimum legal amount of fuel is onboard?

My leading questions more then suggest my opinion but I know who I want flying over my home.

 

How about calling in sick? At one of the largest unionized regionals, actually an airline that purchased a couple of majors recently, you should ask their pilots the policy on sick calls, and the discipline related to what the company may term as "occurrence." It's not a union, it's called a crappy company with abusive management... and they can get away with it too because they know you can't afford to start over and/or don't want to step out of line for that left seat.

How about the best qualified pilot? How about looking at the overall performance? How about peer review? How about a scoring system where your longevity with the company scores you some points for loyalty?

This is not to say that there is no place for seniority, but to base an entire pilot existence and life on his date-of-hire with NO regard whatsoever to anything else is insane. For example, why should a 30 year 777 captain go be an FO flying 737's or MD80's or worse if his airline goes under? Do you not see anything wrong with this picture?

Here's another thing... we like to call ourselves professionals. Ask yourself, if your airline's CEO decides to leave your airline and go to another airline, is he automatically sentenced to being a junior filing clerk simply because he changed his jobs?

Another question I'd really like to hear opinions on... I can understand the fears of "butt-kissing, brown-nosing, rule-bending, etc." in order to get ahead, and this could hold true at a small crappy company. Now let's take a company with several thousand pilots and that airline needs a few thousand captains. How practical would it be to do all those things above to get ahead in such a large organization?

This is a good debate, and I'm glad it's respectful.

 

The real truth about this profession?

There's winners and losers ... just like every profession out there.

For those who do their homework, they typically end up with good results. For those who don't read the fine print and fall prey to snake oil salesman, you get what you paid for.

 

I agree that it is hard to rationalize a reward system based on "who's the better pilot". What if however, rewards were based on ones wilingness to go above and beyond minimums. The safest part about an airplane is who's operating it. What if pilots were awarded/rewarded for taking additional safety classes or even paid overtime to attend them. Taking extra simulator sessions that put pilots in real world accident senarios for study (all volutary of course) could be an option. They could offer a test standard to approve raises and other incentives.

UPS does a set of standard tests for it's employees that, if passed gaurantees a raise. I don't know if this option is for pilots. There are plenty of things airlines could do to see who the best are, but will they do these things? That's another question...

 

100% correct but a vast over-simplification IMO. That's why the website is so helpful.

 

The best part about an airline type seniority list is, you don't have to play Suck Up to Move Up.
In the military it's the only game in town. You want to play that, join the military, and get some kneepads.

Now, to the point that you have no lateral movement in our Airline seniority system, yes, that's always been a problem. I was a proponant of a National Seniority List but you know that it will cost you upward movement as all the other defunkt airline's Captains move in on top of you. As the industry further contracts, it will just take you that much longer to move up at all.

To make it work, we would also need a National Contract, with standardized pay rates, benefits, retirement, etc. all non-negotiable by each individual airline management. They want to buy new airplanes? Fine, here's the pay rate and here's the list of pilots you will be hiring to fly them...

In another life, I flew night freight for Orion. We were contracted pilots for several different cargo ops. One of them was UPS before they got their own flight dept. If you were on the 727 you could bid to fly out of different bases, and in different cargo ops, month to month. One month you could be flying a UPS 727, next month a Purolator Courier 727, next month a Burlinigton Northern 727. All the pay and work rules were the same, as we were actually flying for Orion.

I often thought that ALPA should have done the same thing with the Major Airlines back when the industry was de-regulated. You would apply to ALPA, pay them to train you, get a seniority number and date of hire, then you fly what ever you can hold, out of what ever base you like, nation wide. ALPA would take care of the training, and the contracts. Then, as start-up airlines came and went, you could bid to fly their stuff, or not, but you would have lateral movement and more job security, oh, and a retirement...

 

True. The subject has been raised at least twice at ALPA and shot down both times. Once was when Eastern and Pan Am were going down, but USAir, United, Delta and NWA didn't want senior pilots moving in above them. The second was after 9/11, but it failed for the same reasons. No one wanted a bunch of sour USAirways pilots moving in above them.

Now the problem is that many of the regionals and smaller airlines have large groups of senior pilots. Delta doesn't want Comair pilots moving into the middle of their seniority list and American doesn't want the Eagle pilots doing the same.

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Globalexpress, great website you have there. The Truth About the Profession - Home

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A good idea. It requires a little bit of going back to the days of regulation. Having the FAA dictate how the airlines do business is a form of regulation which the airlines would fight just as hard as they are fighting new duty time regs and flight time requirements.

 

Exactly.

More likely a pilot would be promoted because he's more willing to undertime flights, take more risks to complete the flight, save all mechanical write ups until the end of the day, fly tired or sick and do whatever it takes to help the company make money no matter what the personal risk or if it bends or breaks the rules.

 

So do you tell the guy that, flew A-6's in the Navy, worked at Eastern, lost his job and now works for an ULCC, "your a Loser, you needed to do your homework better and then maybe????"

I would say the real truth has a lot to do with homework as well as a fair amount of luck and timing.... just my 2 cents worth