Originally Posted by
ATR42DRIVER
Is it normal for an airline to strip FOs of their seniority after successfully completing a command upgrade program? Is this a common practice? I know of a company that does this with the rationale that "you are now an inexperienced captain" so you deserve to start at the bottom. I think it's ridiculous. Thoughts?
You will find both routes within the industry and both of them have their own rationale behind.
The ideal condition for an airline is to avoid the need to hire DECs tout court, as this means the quality of the training is good, the operational, network, strategy and training plannings are optimized to the Operations. Yes you might hire Direct Entry Managers that you "stole" from other Operators and whom are also pilots and will be based in the Airline main hub, but this is a different story as it's head hunting and happens in all industries.
Now if an airline still needs to hire DECs for whatever reason (new base openings usually and/or rapid expansion) they will of course be pissed off to sit at the bottom of the seniority list as soon as a long time serving FO upgrades and bypasses them. On the other hand if you put newly upgraded FOs at the bottom of the seniority list they will be pissed off to see their long time commitment to the airline is not adequately considered and this will undoubtedly create issues with unions (if there any) and possibly other operational issues in terms of CRM with DECs that are "taking their slot" in their favorite base.
There is no right or wrong scenario in my opinion. Every FO wishes to upgrade sooner or later in accordance with their capabilities and wishes to live in a certain place. On the other hand if you find yourself in the need to fill the gaps by hiring DECs and you want
quality people, it is unlikely that you will be able to attract those guys without a good package including an acceptable base and the chance to transfer to their preferred base in a decent amount of time.