Originally Posted by
Trossie
I have asked before: could somebody explain what a 'seniority system' is? There are many, many pilots who are not on any such system.
If I do some simple sums, it appears to me that if the odd captain doesn't retire at 65 and delays the odd first-officer/co-pilot from a promotion, that new captain, when he gets his promotion, will have the new advantage of being able to continue working longer himself and thus enjoying a very similar number of years as captain as he would have enjoyed under the old enforced retirement age. So where is the problem? In other words, being able to retire later is not only a benefit to old pilots but to ALL pilots!! (As they will all become old themselves one day.)
Also, there are endless predictions of growth in the airline industry, so surely that will create promotion opportunities for all those 'hard done by' junior pilots who are complaining about this causing them to lose promotion opportunities. It appears that with all those youngsters having the opportunities of growing airlines and increased life/job expectancy themselves that they do complain a bit much.
But please someone, explain what a seniority system is?
When I got hired I there were about 700 active pilots in the company, so I am 700 on the seniority list. We have 7 bases, so after training my whole class bid on which base we wanted to go (as everyone in the class has the same Date Of Hire (DOH), seniority in class was based on age. It took me a few months of new hire classes coming in behind me before I could transfer to the base I wanted. At the beginning of every month the company publishes schedules for the next month. All pilots bid on these schedules and they are awarded on seniority, so the most senior pilot in every base and seat gets his first choice, second one gets at worst second choice, and so all the way down until the most junior guy gets the leftover schedule (probably reserve, working every weekend). There is a system in place for trading/dropping/adding trips to your schedule, most companies this will be seniority based. Every October the company publishes a list of available vacation weeks, and these are bid on and awarded by seniority. As the company grows and people above you retire you get closer to upgrade, because upgrading is not based on merit, and there are no DECs. For me that happened after 3 years when I was pilot 650 (50 pilots above me had left) and the total group had grown to 1000 pilots. More than half the group was still above me, but there is always people who bypass upgrade, because the moment you take it you go from being one of the most senior FOs to being the most junior captain, with the loss of seniority for bidding schedules and vacation. Luckily the company has kept growing and I am now halfway up in my base as a captain, even though I am 600 out of 2000, because I work in a junior base. Everything in my life depends on achieving seniority within the company.
Having explained all that, this is what happened when they raised the retirement age from 60 to 65 in the USA. For 5 years nobody retired and because of the economy nobody got hired, so for 5 years the new hire was at the bottom of the list, and the most senior captain, instead of retiring, stayed at the top for 5 more years. Yes, the new guy will eventually get to the top of the list as well, provided he wasn't an older guy when he got hired, but he will never sit at the top for 5 years, for him the extra 5 years were spent at the bottom of the list, at the lowest pay grade, working reserve and never getting vacation on xmas or in the summer when his kids are off. The simple sum for him works out to career earning that are over a million USD less than the senior guy, plus a lot less QOL, not something you should gloss over....
I was hired when they finally started hiring after 5 years of being stuck in a going nowhere job because of the retirement age change, at age 45, (and will never get in the top 10%), so I hardly qualify as a complaining youngster.