Originally Posted by
Sholayo
How come incompetent idiot flying for 5 yrs in one company is in better position than supersmart and skilled captain with 20 years behind his belt but simply decided to change employer? Does this have anything to do with HR in XXI century?
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The difficulty is that how do you grade a pilot? There are very few ways for a company to list its flight deck according to how competent they are. You can take results and comments of Sim scores of course, but even in my very fair airline there are trainers who offer better scores than others, so it would be luck of the draw. Of course the cream always rises to the top, but how do know that Pilot A coming from Airline A had the same level of scrutiny from their TRE's as you do in your airline?
Any other way to judge a pilot is flawed - OTP, Fuel carriage tables etc. We work as a 2 person crew, punishing or rewarding based on these factors would not be fair, especially for an FO trying to change jobs. Not that any airline would ever release OTP figures for their employees anyway. Basing your "value" on an interview process with Sim check wouldn't be fair either - i'm sure we all know excellent pilots that have failed interviews, and poor ones who have passed.
The only other method I can think of is to look at number and content of ASR's submitted to see how "safe" they are (again something no airline would release anyway). What a terrible idea that would be - I for one wouldn't put in safety reports if it was going to compromise a potential future airline change.
I'm playing devil's advocate here. I think seniority systems are flawed and restrict movement - but the current alternative also has it's issues. One thing I do think should change (and this won't be a popular opinion) is we should remove pay scales. The fact a 15 year pilot gets paid more than a 1 year one in the same role discourages airlines from wanting to make an environment that makes people want to stay - its cheaper for them to have a CP and FO both at the lower end of the pay scale. The aircraft still gets to the same destination from their point of view. It also stops us as pilots from pushing for better pay as we get an automatic pay rise each year we are in the company anyway.