I think seniority could be likened to Winston Churchill’s comments on the Westminster parliamentary system. I can’t remember his exact words, but they went along the lines of “The Westminster parliamentary system is unfair, undemocratic, hopelessly overcomplicated and iniquitous in the extreme. It is open to corruption, gerrymandering and any number of other malpractices. For all these shortcomings, it remains by far the best and most fair system of Government anyone’s come up with to date.”
People keen to throw out seniority, (something that many airlines have today only after a protracted and bitter fight by pilot groups in the past), should understand clearly all the ramifications of any so-called ‘merit-based’ system brought in to replace it. Seniority has many shortcomings and few would disagree that it has limited scope in a start up airline. However, in established airlines, for all its shortcomings, it remains the only system that prevents wholesale nepotism in its many guises on the part of management. Anyone who thinks management wouldn’t take advantage of any such system has only to look to the events currently taking place in Cathay.
I’ve worked in airlines with and without a seniority system and seen the shortcomings of both systems. Anyone who decries a seniority system, has quite obviously never worked in a system that does not have seniority – unless of course he’s the GM’s nephew.