P Style
I'd say your logic is flawed. If there are 1000 commands in the company and you increase that to 1100 commands due to long haul expansion then yes, 100 people get their commands quicker (but only by the amount of time it would have taken for 100 of the original 1000 to retire). Once the commands have stabilised at 1100, you are then at exactly the same time to command again, because you still have to wait for people to retire. I suppose if any of those 100 are older than the 1000 who currently have commands, then you could argue that when they retire, it creates a new command rather than a new FO position, but the overall principle remains. The time to command for the vast majority of BA pilots has not changed. The BACC very much sold the deal to the BA pilot community on the basis that expansion means shorter time to command for all, and that simply is not true.
Incidentally, I'm in no rush for a command. I believe if you have an average 40 year career, it stands to reason that you should normally expect about half of that time to be in the right hand seat, unless huge expansion takes place. I do however have a problem with people voting through cost cutting or productivity increases because they have been led to believe that overall they will be better off, when the reality is that they will never see the 'promised' benefits, because they simply do not exist.
Last edited by GS-Alpha; 14th Jan 2013 at 11:56.