A meritocratic system of seniority might be acceptable in a company or organization whose employees were individually and directly linked to profits with precise accountability to shareholders.
This system of profit generation and accountability is not the norm to be found in airlines in particular or indeed in civil aviation in general. Where growth and profitability are not directly linked to the efforts of one specific person there can be no other system of seniority than the one in which company loyalty and service are rewarded, in the fullness of time and taking into account the ability of the employee to move up the chain of command through each link of seniority. An old navigator of deep acquaintance used to opine that flight decks these days were far too full of fresh faced flying carpet baggers who could neither tell the difference between an air plot transfer and a fart in the Heathrow tunnel nor distinguish a Polar Stereographic from granny's cherry pie.
'Merit,' he would say ' is for First Officers, let them fight among themselves if they must in their over modulated disintegrated fashion'.
'Background is for Commanders and seniority in that regard can only come with time.'
