Fursty Ferret
Well I would point out that companies across the globe handle redundancies without using LIFO every single day without a problem, even BA has done that in the past.
I have not got a dog in this fight having retired from the industry 5 years ago, but reading the threads on different airlines and the way that they are all responding it just seems to that LIFO causes as many problems as it solves. With regards to pay cuts personally I think they are inevitable but I do have my doubts how useful they actually are. Take EZY, a couple of months ago their crews were lauding the fact that they had all come together and accepted pay cuts to ensure that redundancies were not needed - now I am reading that the company is not saving enough cash flow and could be out of business by the end of the year. To me if the market reduces in size by 75% then your only option to save the company is to reduce the size of your company by 75% to meet the new reality.