Not doing too bad mate.
HIer, the process at Ansett was 'qualifications and experience'. This was writen into the Admin. manual.
Bloggs old boy, a proper set of promotional policies would make it pointless to suck up to the Boss. A professional approach would obviate any brown nosing.
Seniority only makes sense in companies that employ people who all have the same skills and aptitudes when joining. However, as this is rarely the case, seniority is as logical a promotional mechanism as, say, the candidates star sign or favourate sporting heroes. The merger of airlines in Canada resulted in very junior FOs becoming 'senior' to C&T captains. The problem of loss of industry knowledge and other CRM issues should be obvious to even the most brain-dead of the supporters of datal seniority.
There exists some rationale for the practice in a large company where it takes many years for crew to become fully conversant with the companies operation and procedures. Even then, this sole rationale is on fairly shaky ground from perspective of optimal use of human resources; its main benefit from a company and pilot body perspective is convenience.
Note that the longer that you are in a company, the more that one supports datal seniority. I agree that it takes some time to become fully conversant with a company's culture and procedures and that there is good reason to spend some time in a junior position until one is ready. This time spent in a junior role would and should be part of 'merit'.
There are many Ansett guys all over the globe at many companies who have been expedited to command because they were well trained and good at their work. Who benefits from this? The company, the shareholder and the travelling public. The obvious benefit is that those with "qualifications and experience" can more rapidly add their "qualifications and experience" to the operating culture of the company.
The more inexperienced pilots who fly with them benefit from gaining additional knowledge by flying with other pilots who are more experienced and better qualified.
The debate on seniority has been going on since the 1920's. The concept has had many famous and well regarded critics, such as Ernest K Gann who said "seniority protects the weak". Green field companies (Virgin Blue etc) dont use datal seniority for these very reasons. The companies that do have had this system built into their industrial award over many years and would be difficult to abolish, so they persist with it.