As I said, any leaning towards a merit-based system needs to be very carefully handled. I agree that checks should be simply pass/fail and should not be graded, as this leaves it open to individual check pilots to apply favouritism or prejudice. When a pilot fails a check it is important that the follow-up check is done by another check captain.
The only items I allowed to be assessed subjectively were presentation, punctuality, flight management and commercial awareness. Flying was either within tolerance = PASS, or outside tolerance = FAIL. Ditto for memory items on the emergency checklist; either known = PASS or not fully known = FAIL. I never required them to be word perfect, but if they were procedurally wrong it was one strike and you are out.
The basic system:
1. If several pilots join on the same day, and assuming all hold ATPL, relative seniority decided by marks attained in the induction examinations (performance, flight planning, EPs etc) = MERIT.
2. A pilot joining with an ATPL would be senior to one with only a CPL = recognition of experience and qualification. I did not, and do not subscribe to the theory that the oldest person should automatically be the most senior. Why?
3. A pilot could bid for an upgrade based on date of joining/seniority (awarded as above) IF he/she had the minimum hours required -sometimes this was a client requirement and therefore beyond the company's control. Where the client was not the controlling factor the Operations manual criteria could credit time served within the company against total hours for upgrades; e.g. for DEC the minimum could be 4000 hours, 1000 command on jet, or for internal upgrade 3000 total, of which 500 on jet within company - this is only an example, the exact details are long forgotten; but the idea was to prevent too many First Officers being bypassed by DECs. DECs would only be employed if no-one within the company met the experience criteria.
4. Assuming the experience criteria was met, all applications would be considered in order of seniority, so a pilot with, say, five years service would get 5 points and one with four years, 4 points etc.
5. Assuming the experience criteria was met, the pilot's training files would be reviewed - if no failures ever recorded, seniority alone was the determining factor. So someone with two years' service, 3000 hours and 500 on jets within the company would automatically be ahead of someone who had one year in the company but had acquired 10,000 hours elsewhere. Bear in mind that in this part of the world pilots don't get anywhere near a jet airline until they have anything from typically 1500 to 5000 hours.
6. However, each failed exercise on any simulator or line check would mean that the pilot was penalised one point - so for example, the five year pilot with two recorded failure items would now have three points and so the four year pilot with no failures could bypass him/her. A certain number of 'repeats' could be allowed for some simulator exercises, so it was not totally draconian.
7. Pilots who bypassed others by virtue of performance (as above only) or because at the time they had the requisite experience which the others did not, would not later 'lose' seniority to those they had bypassed - unless their performance declined and they started to record failures, or were in some other way unsatisfactory and had been subject to disciplinary action.
I don't claim this to be the perfect system but it is a reasonable compromise between straight-line seniority and pure meritocracy.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 24th Nov 2013 at 11:17.