Originally Posted by
The Blu Riband
Or
it means pilots undercutting each other, getting sacked for minor infractions because management know there's always a pilot willing to work for less. It means pilots would feel obliged to compete in fuel league tables and working more for less reward to jump the queue to avoid losing their jobs, or to to get ahead in the race for promotion.
eg BA requires P1s for the A350 so they go to the market and get the cheapest captains willing to work outside of Bidline rules. The 744 is now overcrewed so they get laid off despite many having been with the company for 10 years.
eg BA starts a new route to an exotic location but are only willing to offer a 1 star hotel and no allowances. Junior guys sacrifice pay and standards in the quest for time on a beach.
How do you determine this "merit" based system? Sim scores, overtime rates, departure times, lowest sickness levels, pilots willing to become trainers for no extra comp?
+1
This and exactly this is the reason not to do away with seniority, management don't look at pilot performance or ability, as long as you're not actively endangering the aircraft then management don't know who you are, they don't hire/care about good/great pilots, they hire compliant/competent pilots, competent pilots of which there are many, the only names they know are the ones that don't budge on working conditions/T&Cs, who go fatigued, that won't work days off so I don't know how those could argue that this makes for an improvement in working conditions.
Perhaps the case could be made that in a pilots market seniority holds us back, but the majority of the time over the past 30 years it's been an airline's market with an oversupply of pilots happy to outbid and undercut each other, which means seniority protects those of us actually working to our agreements and protecting our T&Cs, calling fatigued when required, not working days off just because a company couldn't plan adequate sick-leave cover, not accepting less when it comes to HOTAC etc.
Let's not kid ourselves, we all know there are better and worse pilots, we all go into work and see folks who shouldn't be there, we go in and see others that put our own skills to shame, there is a variety of skill level but none of that really matters because 99.99% of the time, all that's needed is someone who meets the minimum requirements, who can pass two sim checks a year and a line check, and there's plenty of those out there. There is a place for meritocracy in certain areas, where it comes to training appointments etc, but for the average pilot on the line all that's needed is acceptable levels of competence, which is where seniority excels in providing order and transparency.