While that seems a logical assertion, after the demise of seniority listed Thomas Cook last year, the vast majority of Captains who got jobs went directly into airlines as Captains. TRE/I's had even less problems as they were mostly lined up with multiple offers within a few weeks. The only Captains that I know of who went right seat were to Emirates on a promise of accelerated command. While some elected not to stay in the UK and went for jobs in various countries as CM1. Covid19, of course, has thrown this all into the air and how this happy picture will look in a years time is anyone's guess.

True. But what saved the day was that there we're non-seniority based airlines for them to slip into (I know TUI technically is - though the above is at odds with a strict seniority system).

It would appear the current state of play in the UK allows those in a seniority system to 'have their cake, and eat it'. A strict system thats benefits them, and in case it all falls apart lots of non-seniority based companies to pick up the pieces. I'm not necessarily saying thats a bad system. If everyone went strict seniority that would cause issues both with the aforementioned redundancy issue, but also with future Ts & Cs in the removal of ones ability to 'vote with their feet'.

Again, I'm not pushing an agenda and remain undecided - its a complicated debate. Just thinking out loud.

Yes you could! It would be completely pointless though...

Best answer in this thread.

For the UK I would be highly surprised if in my flying career, and I still have a looong time to go, I see Virgin or British Airways abandoning their respective seniority systems.

Now imagine every airline in the world ran a strict seniority system. For the captains who lost their job due to no fault of their own (bankruptcy), it would mean:

1. Back to the right seat.
2. With command times in many seniority-based airlines running at 15+ years, they would never see the left seat ever again.
3. Significant drop in salary for the remainder of their career.
4. Should their new airline get in trouble, they'd be laid off before a kid with 500 hrs despite they've probably got 15k hours (assuming LIFO).

And all this just because they weren't "smart" enough to predict the future economics of an airline they joined 30 years ago, and got laid off through absolutely no fault of their own.

Would that seem fair to you?

Flying stone.

imagine the situation where an FO has been in a company for 5 years and is ready for command.

through no fault of his or her own a different company goes under. Your hypothetical Captain comes across and takes the command the FO has been waiting for.... it would mean

1. Remaining in the right hand seat
2. Maybe never getting command as they are leapfrogged by incoming captains.
3. Significant drop in salary because they have not been promoted
4 Should the airline go bust they lose their job before someone who has been in the company for 5 years less than them..

they have been disadvantaged through no fault of their own

does that seem fair to you?

So let’s say if this gets really really bad and BA decided they needed to get rid of 50% of their pilots. You think they’re just going to chop the bottom 50% and be left with mostly a load of senior LH Captains and SFOs and then take the massive cost of retraining most of those pilots onto other fleets/seats? With all due respect, dream on.

Flying stone.
With that same system:

A first officer 17 years in with his current Legacy airline with thousands of hours has got his command coming up.

A pilot who has only been flying for 4 years for a dodgy charter outfit which, after years of not making a profit, has finally gone bust. Luckily for him just before they go bust he manages to get his command.

The captain then joins the same Legacy airline and takes the command position which the first officer was promised.

The first officer has to wait another few years before a command comes up and has to hope the company can’t find any DEC and no other airline goes bust.

Would that seem fair to you?


Edited to say: I’ve seen more or less the above happen in other non seniority based airlines.

FlyingStone

From where do you get the expectation that life should be fair?

The above mentioned merit of seniority is that its 'fair and transparent'. We are discussing seniority in this thread; and he is offering a counter-argument.

what a load of utter s***

Time Traveller is correct in what he says.

There is a scoring system used by the board to determine who is selected. I’ve heard this directly from the horse’s mouth.

Seniority is just one part of it. Don’t think you will be picked over someone with lesser experience because you’ve been around for donkeys years. The areas you’re scored on is vast.

Would one of you anti seniority ladies or gentlemen please, tell me the “fair” and transparent criteria you would use to measure “merit” for promotion, leave, pay etc.
How would your criteria for example, measure where on their present list of pilots, you would slot in, if you move into a new company?

You don't slot in anywhere as there is no 'list'. You join in the role you are offered and probably applied for (SO, FO, CPT etc). I'm sure you must have some awareness of how these things work in other non-seniority operators so I'm not going to waste time explaining.

Whether its fair or not is debatable (as is the idea of time in the company being the sole determinator of everything) - I'd lean towards the idea its fairer. Transparency is a real issue, however.

The sim grades your ILS, first out is the highest sum of the integrals of LOC GS and IAS deviations from FAF to DA :E

On the serious side, any system would be fair as long as it’s transparent and consistently applied and instituted from the beginning. Company seniority, national seniority, hell even worldwide seniority, what have you. Personally I’m a US pilot grown up in a ubiquitous company seniority culture, and that’s where my opinion currently lies. But I’m sympathetic to the arguments for a nationwide seniority system based on the doctor scenario, or the senior pilot whose airline went bankrupt and is starting over at year 1 scenario. I might be persuaded to a national seniority system to address those scenarios, but I’d have to do a lot more thinking if it was an actual possibility on the table instead of navel gazing.

However, given that company seniority already exists and pilots have already invested their lives into their company seniority under pre-agreed terms, someone moving into a position other than the bottom would severely violate that, for anyone junior to that position.

As someone who is sitting smack bang in the middle of a seniority list I think its just about perfect.

I think you should focus your efforts not on trying to throw your fellow pilots under the bus but ensuring that you are in a union and that you have agreements in place for rehire and that notional seniority is maintained whilst out in the wilderness so that you pick up where you left off as best as you can.

where would YOU, in the current climate ask the Coronavirus to SLOT IN,
im a thinking you are from the dinosaur group, top doggie, now de funked group.
The very top of the covid 19 list.
Pretty intimidating for now

I have been made redundant...
I had to start all over again...
I had to relocate...
I had to take the pay cut...
I have been in your shoes...
Then to join a seniority based airline I had to to most of the above again...
Life is 60 percent choice and 40 percent luck...

Life is not fair....

Would it be fair if this person would join another carrier as captain and while doing so "steal" money from f/o's whose upgrade will be delayed by these direct entry captains?

Is that ridiculous reply because you haven’t got an answer to the question? I’ll ask again for them, why don’t you tell us how would you decide? Quality of receipt photos when claiming expenses? Length of PAs given? Tightness of tie knot?

Just being devils advocate; but its only stealing if one buys into the idea of seniority. Is it not more reasonable that the airline will look at their own internal upgrade candidates, and direct entry captains available at that point in time, and decide who is best suited / qualified for the role? This is how recruitment is done in most other professions - and everyones time will still come. It will also mean a more 'liquid' pilot group, which can only be good for terms and conditions.

I think this idea of fairness may also be a red herring. Surely whats important is not fairness, but whats most optimal for the airline / industry / employees. I think there would be a strong case there to argue that this would be a system where the most experienced pilots are placed in the most 'senior' positions.

Valid points, but every other industry has ways to assess and rank employees. Take a banker, how much did they make this year? Checkout worker, speed of checkouting. Police officer, quality of case write ups.

Pilots crash, or they don’t. How else do you assess them? Meritocracies can’t work when the only differentiator is what squadron mug you’ve got hanging up at home, which is the sort of selection that a flat system would (and does) predicate.

Cut to the chase......seniority. Everyone is talking about redundancy and who should take the hit.

Firstly there needs to be a legal matrix. It can be weighted towards seniority but not exclusively. Geographic cannot be challenged and it is the role that is redundant, not the person. Legally you can’t make a pilot redundant and then transfer another pilot into their role. Well certainly not without a challenge.

What can we do? Argue, point fingers, throw our colleagues under the bus? Maybe it would be better to try and protect everyone career. That is not the same as their income or job. Exhaust all part time working, unpaid leave, job sharing, voluntary redundancies or early retirements (with a incentive package, not just booting people out with < 5 years to go) If that is not enough then it’s on to redundancies. Redundancies come with a financial package. That is all well and good but what I would want to see is protection of these pilots careers. Measures should be built in that these pilots can return to their company on their original seniority and position as and when conditions allow.

I am concerned for my job but I am more concerned for my career. If ever we need to stick together it is now.

Seniority sucks, but I cannot think of a better system for fleets moves, promotion etc. You earn your chance for those, you then have to demonstrate you are capable.

I worked for an airline that went from a seniority, promote from within culture to a “merit” and “experience” based system with a heavy focus on direct entry Captains. It wasn’t pretty and the people it often attracted were :-

​​- those who had been sacked from previous airlines for safety reasons, but rated and available now
- friends of managers from inside the airline
- friends of managers from outside the airline
- individuals that had lied about experience, qualifications and even one with a criminal conviction for perjury
- other airlines non-upgradable FO’s with bags of hours and a chain of failed upgrade attempts. These were made DEC’s or continued to fail upgrades

There were good guys too, but overall it was unsafe. I had been a Captain for that airline in the past but was demoted on moving from the turboprop to the jet. I just watched scary pilots appearing out of nowhere, whilst not getting a look in myself. Many long serving pilots left the airline to go elsewhere, to the bottom of a seniority list, like I did. My previous airline is now left with many pilots who will need constant management and will always be risky.

Seniority does ensure that the airline has to provide good training, give structure to careers and the airline has a chance to see the pilot performing well, prior to upgrade.

When I board a legacy carrier's aircraft, I worry about the occupant of the left seat. I worry he's there because his number came up and he scraped through, or had 'friends'. None of them are there solely because they're able.

I'm with Ernest Gann (and there's no better company to be in).

Seniority has ruined this profession. Meritocracy, in a properly run airline, is the way to go. There are crap outfits, like the one fair weather flyer refers to, of course, but every sphere of business has its dross.

Unless they also go the way of You never know in this industry. I bet the pilots in those airlines never knew too, until it was too late.

What is it with "Legacy airline" guys that they think they are so 'special'? When their airline goes bust (and see above, they are not immune), they are just the same as anyone else.

Kit Sanbumps KG

In all airlines whether seniority based or otherwise you have to pass the command to get that left seat. My first airline did not have a seniority list. There were captains who were contractors who had no right to be sat in an aircraft let alone the left hand seat. There were captains who were in the right squadron so therefore “good eggs” or brownnosers who were absolute disasters to fly with and there were FO’s who because they had pissed off a certain senior manager would never even get in front of a command board.

I’m now relatively speaking junior in a seniority based airline with the best T’s and C’s of my career and everyone knows where they stand. I wouldn’t change a thing.

clvf88

Of course it is stealing the F/O's position. When comparing your two candidates for the role, what criteria are you going to use? Hours?PIC Time? Psyco tests? If an airlines' internal candidates with thousands of hours on type, within the operation does not trump a guy from outside it would be a serious indictment of that airline's recruiting, training and pilot development models. The only reason to take a DEC is when you do not have any suitably qualified F/O's

Furthermore, where would any F/O ever get his upgrade from. Airlines do not generally recruit F/O for training into a DEC positions., so they are reliant on getting their command at the company where they are working. I guess just too bad if they keeping on filling the slots with guys from outside.

When you have 1000 pilots, what criteria would you use in a merit based system to order them for retrenchment?

And yes, I am at a large middle east carrier that uses seniority. I have been here a long time and I would not expect to jump any queues. If I choose to go to BA, I would expect to join at the bottom of their list.

I’m in the bottom third at my airline but despite that and however imperfect it may be, seniority list is the only way to go.

Lots of talk about fairness of a non-seniority system but none how would it actually be played out.

Imagine you are looking for captains...

Seniority airline: first in gets it. Done, that’s literally all there is to the process. How can it be any more transparent in any possible way. Might not like it, but it is transparent.

Non seniority airline: erm... make sure your mate is the trainer doing the assessment?? 🤷‍♂️

bex88

​​​​​​Spot on comment. Time for the pilot community to stick together. It is not just jobs at stake, but careers. For airlines that survive maybe even consider compulsory 50% contracts for all to start with alongside a commitment to increase for those that want it as recovery escalates. Job protection should be the priority for all.

So there's no assessment before someone is placed on the upgrade course except that their number is up next? Some solution.

That's an indication of a deep and systemic culture problem within an airline, rather than lack of seniority list.

Any sensible airline will always promote from within where possible, as training department will have had complete oversight into candidate's training history and the candidate would already have time on type, SOP knowledge, route experience, works of the company etc. DECs are always a bit of a wildcard.

Nearly every pilot in the U.K. over sixty thought, twenty years ago, that they’d be retired by now.

I’m afraid that a lot of these people ‘love their jobs’ too much and can’t give up flying much to the detriment of the younger folk. Also, they just can’t see how morally wrong they are.

I know loads of guys, who live abroad and have paid little or no tax, who have RAF pensions and still want to fly.

I am not saying how I feel about these people, (well I don’t like the lack of morals) I’m just highlighting the fact.

Good luck to everyone.

This sounds like the sort of thing an HR graduate would say :rolleyes:

Explain exaclty how a merit based system would work.

I'm in an airline of thousands of pilots and by definition of us doing our jobs properly we should all be doing everything the same way. Nobody should be doing anything better or worse as we ought to following the same script.
Check scores are subjective and depend on the checkie as much as the student, fuel burns and OTP matrix? Forget it as too much is outside our control.

I've worked under both systems, and both have pros and cons. The larger the organisation the more relevance seniority has because it solves a problem no other system can.. Transparency

If seniority is the fairer system right now, but by the end of this world disaster over half of us have lost our jobs (I.e redundancy), what then?

With the critical mass of the pilot community finding itself with no way to earn the same money in aviation ever again, will it still be true that seniority served its purpose?

Like unabated, relentless capitalism, the perceived benefits of seniority collapse within the setting of a world wide disaster. Some will get lucky, most won't.

Unfortunatly this probably will happpen and seniority will neither have served or failed in its purpose. A seniority system can rarely cater for every black swan event such as we are witnessing, and every seriority system has its own unique differences. Obviously an airline collapses entirely then that system is no longer relevant, but those in the junior ranks of surviving airlines will at least enjoy some protection and why shouldnt they.

I dont think that seniorty is a fantasic system, but its better than any alternative (especially if your airline is large and/or progession is slow).

What a pompous Post!

Twenty years ago all pilots thought they would be on much better pensions than they can expect now. Many will need to work to recover from the hammering that their pensions have had, especially with this present debacle. (Have you looked at what has happened to pension savings over the past six weeks?)

But do you care about that, or just your selfish self? (Well, I don't like your lack of morals.) I'm just highlighting the fact.

It will never happen. Pointless discussion

Trossie, looking at your other posts it seems that your glass is only ever half full and you enjoy a bit of a rant but thank you for your comments.
Just throwing this suggestion out there... why just not take the retirement age worldwide down to 63?
Merely a discussion point and, would it help?