seniority lists discussion..... Again!
 

I know this has been beaten to death in the past , however....

Could we use this moment in time to rethink if we as a pilot group should abandon seniority lists.

Any pilot right now has job uncertainty, from the majors to the smallest airline. Thinking your safe in any airline right now would be naive.

If lots of pilots end up being “available” , then when the industry picks back up again it would be logical that you could apply to your experience level in any new or old airline.

That's a huge step since the concept goes right back to the beginning of commercial aviation. Earnest K Gann wrote frequently about it for instance

To fire someone based on the spot of the seniority list is some form of discrimination and normally age discrimination is the most obvious one.

I think most airlines would like to fire the top end of the seniority list based on their salaries that are often about 4 to 5 times as high as a junior FO including pension payments. So in that case you have to fire 4 or 5 FOs in order to retain the same amount of cash compared to someone who will be retiring in a few months time.

I don't think it's gonne be a case of just following the 'last in first out' rule. It's gonne be more about salaries and the fleet you are currently flying. Looking at the early retirement of the 74's for example. Re-training onto a different aircraft type is expensive as well.

It's going to be messy for the upcoming few years and jobs will be lost, but again I don't think the seniority list will be the main thing for job losses.

Airlines won’t have the financial or training capacity to observe strict seniority reinstatement. With some fleets and crew bases shut down, regrettably aircrew on those fleets and bases will be sacrificed.
However, there is a strong case for seniority within a base/fleet to be the basis for re-employment. I can’t think of any other way that would be fair.

Great time to get rid of all airline HR departments or at least retrain them to some productive service area. 😊

And Earnest K Gann had nothing good to say about it, all that time ago.

I didn't say the concept was a good one.........

I know, I'm just helping to add information.

Seniority is by no means perfect however..
As pilots we make many decisions that non flying managers do not like or understand. Some of those decisions cost a lot of money (in the short term) and interrupt schedules. Carrying adfitional fuel, writing up an unserviceability at a port with no engineering coverage (as regs require), refusing an aircraft with multiple MEL's, diverting due weather, calling fatigued.
Often seniority will limit management to target individuals who are perceived as trouble makers. It can give us the confidence to do our job well without fear or favour.

That is a good thing.

Anyone who thinks getting rid of seniority is a good idea is not vey senior themselves.

Typical selfish reactions to not getting their way when they want it. Same people who want to pay someone for a job so they can avoid actually having to work hard to get a coveted position.

Either that or they elected to stay at a non seniority airline, generally to advance their career a fair bit quicker, and now feel entitled to leapfrog all those who did make the jump early in their career knowing how the system works at the bigger airlines. Having worked for both and did make the jump early in my career, I prefer the seniority based system where things are done on merit and not on things you might have achieved elsewhere.

Very few other professions have seniority, for a very good reason.

Will a doctor with 30 years experience have to start as an intern, just because they decide to move to a different hospital?

Why should an airline captain with 30 years experience start as a second officer, just because they move to another city/country/airline?

I doubt (rightly so) things will change with regards to airlines using seniority systems. Just to ask a counter question, why should a skipper who got her/his command after 3 years of SH flying be able to jump above somebody who has been a FO for 16 years flying SH and LH with thousands of hours under her/his belt who just hasn't got her/his command because people generally stick with his career airline?

There is no fair system. However from the moment anybody joins the aviation word all the facts are out there. Some choose to join a stable legacy career airline with a seniority system, some choose to only fly regional props because they live close to base, some choose to fly flow fares or happy holiday people because they don't want to be a number and they love the smaller bases. All these come with risk and benefits. The risk if you join a charter company is it might not last you until the end of your career and you could end up seeing a bankruptcy when you are in the twilight of your career. Joining the legacy career airline you know you won't be a training captain as fast as the person choosing the charter company but you are much more likely to see your retirement with that airline.

This discussion will always be returning. The pilots working for a seniority system defending it and the pilots who have come to realise they made the wrong career path choice criticising it.

The first casualty if you lose the Seniority system will be your sense of any job security, for all of your career.

Beware of what you wish for...

TWA, Eastern Airlines, Pan Am, Swissair, SABENA. All 'legacy career airlines'. All with seniority systems. How was job security with them?

Earnest Gann has been mentioned. He got out of the airline industry when he saw, as a senior pilot in his airline how unfair the system was on people, not on their own choices or decisions but entirely on the decisions of those in management or the quirks of business at the time.

If you are determined to have a seniority system then you must accept that you go to the very bottom of the pile, no matter what experience you have or what post you hold if through some quirk that you have no control over whatsoever, for example a major international financial crash, major terrorist incidents, a world-wide pandemic, etc. That means a training captain with 15,000 hrs+ and 25 years in that airline (for example) has to become a junior first officer. That is just stupid. For a start, a waste of talent and experience. And will he get a job as a junior f/o? Or will he be considered potentially too much of a CRM risk with junior captains?

Why?

There is what I deem to be a rather delusional attitude among some of the large UK seniority based airlines that redundancy will be from the bottom of the list up.

Putting aside the legal implication of such a system, it would cost the company a fortune to employ such a method; in a time when they are trying to achieve the exact opposite. I just can’t see it.

Trossie

I didn't say it would stop airlines going broke. That happens whatever system you go for.

A seniority system isn't perfect, your second point is valid in that it both discourages and penalises pilots that want to move airlines. But, to balance that, it provides a stable basis for a long term career in which there are few options of advancement. Fo-Capt-Training Capt (plus a few bolt ons for management roles for the very few). IMO it also motivates pilots to band together and work for a common cause, the protection of their status and bank balance. Very very few things motivate pilots (once they are in their shiny jet) other than protection of their T&C's. A dog eat dog system bring out the worst.

Not delusional, it has been tested and slightly modified to address the m/f imbalance that still exists. Still legal in the UK last I looked.

The benefit is for the pilots not the airline. That's the point.

challenge it then! Why do you think perhaps that it’s not been challenged yet?
the most litigious country in the world (USA) still seem to have seniority within their major airlines. From where I sit in my armchair, my legal opinion is that it’s clear there isn’t a case to answer. Seniority is another word for loyalty in the legal world, and it’s been shown under U.K. case law that rewarding employees based on loyalty is in fact legal (or more accurately not illegal). See rolls Royce vs Unite the union for the case i refer.
You are (wrongly) making the assumption that seniority is age discrimination when it is crystal,clear it is not. There are pilots at BA that joined at 20 years old that are mega senior but still much younger than DEPs that joined post military service. How would you square that circle?
the merits and pitfalls of a system will be debated long after Corona is a distant memory, but I bet my pension there’s no legal challenge (who would even bring a case anyway?) in my lifetime.
remind me how the 65 mandatory retirement for pilots legal challenge went...

I was speaking with a Balpa rep not long time ago and in the main offices they are terrified that someone one day will challenge the seniority system is certain airlines, because they know the chances are high it would not hold up in court.

Flybe when financially stressed in 2013 went for redundancies by fleet and by seat (also by base) with a matrix system where seniority was the dominant (but not overarching) factor. This was because they were told by lawyers that pure LIFO was “legally unsafe” (to use their words). I would suggest that the more important point for them was that this also allowed them to minimise their retraining bill. I have absolutely no doubt that this is how any European airline with multiple fleets and bases is going to play it and why, as a Gatwick pilot at BA, I’m absolutely crapping it right now.

I'm not fully up to speed on the law surrounding this, but lets assume you are correct and it is legal.

The reality is that, as you state, it benefits the pilots; in that it will cost the airline money. When they naturally do the opposite, whats our reponse? Do we really expect junior collegues to join strike action to have themselves made redundant?

Assuming that the "merit" you possess is being time served and not your experience, ability and suitability

And they have been afraid of it for a long time. Rumour has it (because I wasn’t personally involved) that when Bmi baby made people redundant in 2008 ignoring the seniority list and the terms of the contract that all the pilots had signed Balpa refused to give legal aid to anyone wanting to challenge the company after the redundancies because they didn’t think they would win, and losing would set a precedent.

Under UK employment law it is a position which has to be no longer necessary. Let’s say, for example, that a Big airline wanted to shut its operation at airport G. It couldn’t make junior pilots at Airport H redundant and put more senior pilots from airport G into those positions as that would be against UK law. The only people it could make redundant would be the pilots at airport G whose positions no longer existed.

By all means (in the UK) have your seniority list for fleet changes, base changes, upgrades, training appointments etc etc but don’t expect seniority alone to protect you against redundancy. This is in the UK, and irrelevant to the USA, Europe, Australia or anywhere else.

Can’t posters in this thread also include in their post if they are currently employed by a seniority based airline?

i can’t help myself think that those who work for a seniority based airline are in favour and those who aren’t and would love to join a seniority based airline are against it?

To kick off; I do work for a seniority based airline.

It is relevant in most legislations I am aware of.
In my European country when you are talking redundancies there are three factors that need to be considered:

- family situation (having dependants put you in a better position, for obvious reasons)
- seniority
- company organizational needs (training, bases, roles, etc)

In no specific order.
There is room to negotiate with the unions, if present, but the law clearly state the criterias that have to be considered.

Seniority based airline.

I'm not posting an arguement for or against; but questioning whether peoples faith in it with relation to redundancies is misplaced.

So the binary world you live does not include the odd chance that somebody honestly doesn't believe in seniority based systems?

excrab

bmi was slightly different in that baby was a wholly owned subsidiary of bmi. It was deemed perfectly legal (but morally questionable imo) to make pilots redundant from baby that had many more years service than their peers in mainline.

which airline and base was this? Which strike?

True, but the redundancies in 2008 were about Bmi baby management ignoring the seniority list and making redundancies by seat and base within Bmi baby. Nothing to do with Bmi mainline.

Seniority and 'final salary' pension schemes have always been the 'shackle' that have solidly bolted many pilots into airlines -- to the absolute delight of management!

Final salary pension schemes are one by one being shown to have feet of clay.

Seniority list should go the same way. Present circumstances should speed that up.

Two decades ago I was is one of the UK's major airlines, with a final salary pension scheme and half way up the seniority list. I left for a better lifestyle with those two factors being the most difficult decisions to break from. That airline no longer exists. My final salary pension savings are OK, but underfunded. The airline that I went to had a seniority list and a final salary pension scheme. After a few years there, and massive upheavals in the airline industry, I left again with lifestyle being the deciding factor. That airline no longer exists and the state of the final salary pension scheme has been the subject of articles in business sections of national newspapers (fortunately I did not have many years there). The airline that I next went to had no seniority list nor any pension scheme. I set up my own pension saving (and it has grown well, with only minimal decline over the past few months). The next airline that I joined (again for lifestyle) had a seniority list but final salary pension schemes were then 'out of fashion'. That airline no longer exists. Since then I have worked for two more airlines, one with no seniority system and the present one, well, I don't know, it doesn't bother me any more so I don't pay attention to that as I now have the best lifestyle that I have ever enjoyed in my airline career and the best job security. (As I have saved well more than normal for pensions for a long time, even the current upheavals have not been too bad and I am so thankful that I do not depend heavily on any final salary pensions.)

So, summing up: If I had gone by the mantra that "Seniority Is Everything", I would not be where I am now in a secure job with the best airline lifestyle that I've ever had. I am so glad that I broke from those shackles over two decades ago.

But let's look at this an entirely different way: We have many hundreds of pilots right now who have found their seniority counted for absolutely nothing. If they are employed by 'seniority based' airlines all their experience and expertise counts for nowt and they go to the bottom of the pile. Would I want our medical profession to be like that where a doctor moving from one Trust, District or whatever, has to go to the bottom of the pile and have his talents and experience count for nowt? If I need to see a 'senior' doctor it cannot be that one with that wealth of experience but has to be one who has simply 'been there longer'? What a horrible thought.

]Earnest K. Gann has been mentioned.
Maybe wrong but I thought E.K. Gann expressed his opinion of seniority systems AFTER he became Number One at AA?

Wrong.

It comes up constantly through "Fate is the Hunter" as being illogical. At the end of it when he flew with a co-pilot who was far more experienced than he was but was only in that seat because his airline had gone bust, Gann decided it was time to get out of the industry. (For those of us who enjoy reading, that was a good move.)

Where did you get the idea that Gann was Number One at AA?

Seniority has no place in the modern work force anymore and its right that it be scrapped around the world. All positions should be purely merit based regardless of DOJ, sex, gender, race etc.....Make ti so pilots can move easily around the world without fear. Seniority benefits companies far more than it benefits the pilots, time to get rid of it.

And out of curiosity how do you demonstrate merit as a pilot? Number of diversions? Fuel efficiency? Days off flown? On time performance?
See my point? Not a huge fan of seniority myself but I can see how "merit" can be measured from the management side and I am not sure I like it.

What airlines still use seniority based systems?

I would think these days there is enough seniority based airlines and non seniority based so that you can choose the one that floats your boat most.

Many airlines in Europe use a seniority based system.

My previous carrier were a low cost carrier and they even ran a seniority list. Current employer have been in existence over 80 years and run with a seniority list. My own feelings are its fair and transparent. I would not like to change it at all !

I'm undecided.

Genuine question though. Lets assume you're now aged 50, a senior TRE within your company, with a family etc to support. Your company has issues and folds. You are now probably going to spend most the rest of your career with the next seniority based carrier as an FO, potentially earning a third as much money. Is that still fair?

That’s not strictly true, what you are describing is called transferred redundancy, or “bumping” as it’s commonly known. It is perfectly legal however it isn't always easy to justify so I don’t necessarily disagree with the likely outcome just be aware that it doesn’t always have to be the role rather than the person being made redundant.