Crikey Normanton. Talk about conflation two separate issues. My post about ‘last on, first off’ was in reply to complaints about ‘picking on’ junior crew. In that respect the EA is the EA.
Still, you should have highlighted the word ‘may’ in your quote from the EA. Sure the company has said that they will skip those on LWOP but you can’t really take that to the bank. For a junior pilot taking LWOP only works if you’re hoping that someone senior doesn’t take it and they’re made redundant whilst you are not and you’re back flying before them.
Where your logic falls down is if the surplus is 300 pilots and 300 take LWOP then the surplus is dealt with and no one is made CR. When your 12 months of LWOP is done and you ask to come back the company will respond with ‘yeah, nah’. You’ll take another 12 months LWOP and eventually come back flying at the exact time you would have otherwise had you taken CR.
I suspect I speak for a lot of crew when I suggest that you should seriously consider LWOP. Perhaps 3-5 years would be a good amount of time?