Originally Posted by
cvg2iln
Do please explain (without reference to the occasional bad apple) as to who exactly should sit in the left seat and why, when the vast majority attain and subsequently maintain the required standard throughout?
Sure. My example of the guys who create extra work for the adminstrative types by dragging their heels on accomplishing the BS details of being a pilot was intended as a single example, not the only one as you have misinterpreted. I assume that you were intentionally playing dense for rhetorical purposes and that you aren't really unable to see that.
Since you're obviously a huge fan of the phrase "vast majority" we'll continue with that theme. You do it the same way that position assignments and promotions are determined in the *vast majority* of the rest of the working world: by some combination of job performance, training and job experience. That's kind of my central point, the people who think that seniority is the only possible way, act as if anything other than seniority based advancement is some sort of radical new bizarre and untested thinking. In reality, it's not. That is the way the *vast majority* of the rest of the planet operates, and have for the *vast majority* of history. It's only when you exist in the artificial microcosm of aviation (or some other highly unionized industry) that one develops the misconception that seniority is the only way.
One of the fascinating aspects of the reasoning (if we can stretch the definition a little) against anything but seniority based advancement is that the following arguments are advanced in parallel:
1) Merit based advancement is impossible because there is no way to distinguish merit among pilots because they all meet minimum standards, and there's too many of them to identify individual performance anyway.
2) Seniority is *necessary* as it's the only way to prevent favoritism among individuals, and/or retaliation against individuals for refusal to compromise safety.
We'll ignore for the moment that "only way to prevent retaliation for refusal to compromise safety" is, as was pointed out earlier, a specious argument, as a seniority based industry actually gives unscrupulous managers *more* power over pilots, not less. Instead, let us consider the cognitive dissonance required to believe, at the same time, that these hypothetical evil managers both *know* the pilots well enough on an individual basis to form a desire to play favorites and retaliate against specific individuals, but *do not know* the pilots well enough to identify who is good at their job and who is not. It is interesting to observe the mental gymnastics required to simultaneously make both conflicting claims and maintain a straight face. Nonetheless, many seem able to accomplish this.
Moving past the illogic of the conflicting claims, and avoiding, as requested, reference to the "problem children" with sub par performance; In any organization, and airlines are no different (again. remember this is the way that *vast majority* of the world outside airlines works) there exist within the group of individuals *who meet the minimum standard*, those who *only* perform to the minimum standard, and those who put in the extra effort to perform above the minimum; those who make the extra effort to assure that operations go smoothly, both in the air and on the ground, ensure that things which need to get done, get done on time and with a minimum of ruffled feathers, those who do *not* take the attitude of "not my job" and who do what needs to be done to make the airline run. We've all flown with both types. The idea that nobody knows who the "go the extra mile" types are and who the "bare minimum" types are, and that it would be impossible to identify either is specious at best. The *vast majority* of the rest of the working world does this, and there is nothing unique about aviation which makes it impossible to do with flight crew.