What’s the Big Deal About Seniority?

In the airline business it holds the key to many things, work-related and otherwise.

Sam Weigel

Friday, July 15, 2022 at 08:25 AM ET

Verified

The seniority system remains in place primarily because pilots have consistently chosen it. [File photo: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

The seniority system is a defining and deeply entrenched characteristic of US airline piloting, universally adopted as pilots consistently choose it over merit-based systems to prevent favoritism and ensure fair allocation of resources.
Seniority dictates nearly all aspects of a pilot's professional life, including work schedules, aircraft assignments, base changes, and promotions, with more senior pilots enjoying significantly better quality of life and opportunities.
Key drawbacks include pilots losing all accumulated seniority when changing companies, leading to difficult career transitions, and intense disputes during airline mergers over seniority list integration.
Despite its challenges and various reform proposals, the seniority system remains deeply ingrained in the industry due to its benefits for pilots and is unlikely to change.

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A very old aviation aphorism holds that the airline pilot’s life is ordered on “sex, salary, and seniority—not necessarily in that order!” I’m not going to touch the first topic with a 10-foot pole, and both the lower and upper end of airline salaries are pretty well known. It is the seniority system that deserves a closer look, for despite being one of the defining features of a piloting career, it is a unique institution that seems rather foreign to most modern working Americans.

As mentioned in my last video, virtually all airline pilots in the United States are unionized, and those who aren’t work under rather union-like conditions. Beyond the airlines, many of the larger fractional, charter, and cargo companies have also chosen to use seniority for the purposes of aircraft assignment, upgrade, and scheduling.