seniority options:
date of hire at current airline.
date of first flight as a pilot anywhere (ppl)
putting all names into hat and having sexiest female flight attendant draw names....first drawn equals top seniority.
take a pilot with 19 years seniority and make them junior to someone at a merged airline with 3 years seniority
enforce a meritocracy controlled by management, who would judge you on how many times you "helped out" on your days off. (while denying it...this would encourage a company man concept)
Yes dear friends, there are a bunch of marginal pilots who are senior to you. They are total A$&holes. They aren't very good at airplane knowlege, CRM, and don't leave a good tip at dinner.
But the other options are simply unfair...except for putting all the names into a hat...and you would still get A$#holes senior to you, but then it would be by shear luck.
My airline just merged with another here in the US. My airline made over 200 million profit this last quarter, their airline lost money. THEY claim THEY saved our bacon so they should be senior. The Arbitraitor (remove ARBI) said someone who was 8 years old when I started flying the line would be senior to me.
I'll take the pretty girl with the hat system...at least their is a pretty girl to look at.