BoilerUP, you may have to give up on this one; the logic of it just doesn't seem to be clicking with Beka, and his peers.

But, in the spirit of friendly (or is it?) debate, I'll take a stab at it.

The short of it is, seniority is purely and wholly a relative thing, with regards to the modern workplace. Seniority is NOT determined by how many years you've been employed by company XYZ, but by how many people were hired before and after you that are currently employed in active status/good standing. That is it. PERIOD. DOT. Nothing more to it than that. It is easy to see how people could confuse being employed for many years as deserving higher seniority, as most people with long employment are senior in their company. But when longevity of employment did not result in high seniority, then there should be no expectation of being able to assume high seniority simply because you merged with guys with high seniority, yet less longevity of employment at their respective company.

Lets make an example using two fictitious people employed by two fictitious companies that loosely resemble the circumstances between America West and USAirways:

Employee 1) 20 years of employment history with continuous employment (arbitrary high number for examples sake) but with very little upward movement on the seniority list. His seniority among his peers within his company? Low.

Employee 2) 10 of years of employment history with continuous service (arbitrary number) at a younger company, but has had lots of hiring occur after he was hired, resulting in much more upward movement on his seniority list. His seniority among his peers within his company? High(er).

If these two companies were to merge, who would you place above who and why?

Would you A) place #1 over #2 simply because he has worked in the industry 2x as long as #2, despite having poorer seniority in his pre-merger company? Or would you B) place #2 over #1 because he was higher in relative seniority pre-merger than #1 was pre-merger?

If you chose option 'A' because guy #1 has been employed in the business much longer than guy #2, then guy #1, and guys like him, will gain a VAST improvement in seniority within the new post-merger company based on LONGEVITY, but NOT on SENIORITY. And since we have already determined that seniority is only based on how many guys were hired before/after you were, then the desire for DOH based "seniority" post-merger is completely invalid, and frankly, unfair. In other words, a windfall blessing for guy #1.

The solution? Relative seniority. No one's seniority is worse off than it was pre-merger. Is your captain 10 years younger than you and possibly possessing 10 years less experience in the industry than you (generalized 'you')? Possibly. So what? You were only able to hold junior FO pre-merger, why should that change?