Christep
Those of you who have never worked in any other field may not appreciate how unusual this is and how envious many people are of you getting, say, 15% more money now than you did 6 years ago for doing exactly the same job (in addition to any of these other increases that you wish for).
I don't know what your line of business is, but this is known in the airline business as seniority.
It works both ways. In times of expansion everybody would jump ship and find some other airline offering a bit more if it wasn't for seniority. So it works in favour of the airline in times of expansion and in favour of the pilots in times of layoffs.
If it wasn't for this pay scale system, airlines would most likely be spending extra billions training guys coming from a similar job at another airline, and the ups and downs in this industry as far as pay goes would be severly amplified. (As if it is not bad enough already)
If any airline management thought this pay scale system was a bad idea, they would have done away with it years ago. Fact is they love it when the world is short on pilots, since the majority of most airline pilot groups are tied to the company for that very reason. On top of the pay scale seniority many other airlines have seniority bidding systems, so for them it is not just income, it is lifestyle as well.
Just my 2 cents
Cider30