My take on the pilot progression policy is this. I emphasise that I'm only guessing and condoning nothing.
In an established airline pilots, on the whole, move through the ranks relatively slowly. Rarely does an airline have such a diverse fleet as that at NJE and pilots on those fleets stay on each type for more than just a couple of years. This means that retraining costs are, pilot for pilot, somewhat lower.
Now let us look at NJE. A fast growing company sucking in pilots from all around to feed their expansion and to crew the growing fleet which I think had fifty something aircraft at the beginning of 2005 and will have ninety by the end of the year.
In an ideal world new hires might start in the right hand seat of a small cabin aircraft, progress through the mid-size and large aircraft before returning to the smaller aircraft for their first command after which they would move up again as captain. It would be difficult to find anyone to say that this would be unfair.
The pilots see large, shiny aircraft arriving and quite naturally expect to be given a crack at them on the basis of time served. The thing is that new aircraft are arriving at such a rate that if the company followed the 'ideal' progression model two-thirds of the workforce would be in training all the time and pilots would spend about six months on each aircraft.
At the same time each fleet, especially the smaller aircraft where most of the new hires go, need a core of experienced people to stay behind and act as trainers.
I suppose it's cheaper to post new hires to larger aircraft and accept a few people leaving than shell out for 250 type ratings per year.
Just my guess.