Yep Blue & White: you made an interesting point, although there might be very few such cases. My intent was to point out that if all line pilots and Merger Committee members in any merger, not just the AA/TWA acquisition etc, could somehow be detached from their personal desires, however naiive this sounds, and if each merged list had many years of category seat protection, then might some adjusted date-of-hire (without being knocked down like that EP-3 near China) or ratios prevent hindering the normal progression? There are infinite combinations of ratios, freezes or whatever.
Incidentally, my original company never had widebodies, and many of us have never wanted to fly the "other guys'" widebodies anyway, therefore never bid for any of those seats.
Maybe because my progression on our smallest jet (and options of bidding the larger narrowbodies for a while) was hindered both by our very long arbitration and my employee number which began with the "wrong" number, but lived in the base which never shrank much, thank goodness, it never occured to me to have a personal attachment to what my resulting seniority could hold. I must be in a very small minority. It took so long anyway to move up the FO list on our most junior equipment. I'll describe our situation in better detail if someone wants to e-mail me.
It's often difficult to see major issues from another person's viewpoint.
[ 12 August 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]