Hypothetical situation concerning senority

[M&Maviation]

You are currently a first officer and according to your senioritynumber you have enough seniority to bid for Captain. However, yourcurrent total time doesn't allow to get an ATP (your a couple hundredhours short). Those below you in seniority have more hours than you do.

How does this all play out, and how are seniority numbers affected, if at all?

 

[typhoonpilot]

Seniority numbers will not be affected unless the company in your hypothetical question changes seniority numbers based on when people make captain, which is very unlikely. Your hypothetical person will upgrade when he has the requisite number of hours and his seniority should still be based on date of hire.

As an example, I upgraded way out of seniority at my current airline because I did have the experience necessary. All those guys I bypassed will be senior to me when they upgrade. So I'll sit at the bottom of the captain list for another year until they have all upgraded. In your example, your hypothetical person, when he upgrades, will have seniority over those that bypassed him.

TP

 

[mar]

Notwithstanding Typhoonpilot's comments:

If you have no union contract you're basically at the mercy of your management team.

God help you.

They make the rules and they can break the rules to their satisfaction. Sure, they've spent countless hours producing an employee handbook that outlines various scenarios but not every situation can be covered. And although it may seem like a binding document basically you have no recouse unless you'd like to pursue a lawsuit or something of that magnitude. In which case, then you'd be very lucky to ever upgrade.

The seniority system is just one way to manage pilots. Like Typhoonpilot, I once upgraded out of seniority much to the frustation of a few other FOs. In my opinion, the frustration was caused by the company claiming that on the one hand, yes, they do "respect" seniority and then on the other hand doing things like upgrading out of seniority.

In my opinion, if the companies want to hire low time pilots because they work cheaper then they should abandon the seniority system and stop pretending they "respect" seniority when they obviously don't.

And that's just one man's opinion. Mine. Good luck.