Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Seniority *

(* But Were Afraid to Ask)

Not sure how seniority works? No reason to be embarrassed about that! It’s complicated! Let me break it down into smaller, digestible parts.

The Pilot Seniority List or Roster

Most well-established large airlines use a seniority system for their pilots, called a seniority list or roster -- some very small companies and some foreign airlines do not. The description that follows generally pertains to U.S. and Canadian airlines, but there are variations according to custom, policy, and union contract agreements.

EVERYTHING to do with the pilot job hinges on seniority: which airplane you fly, whether you are captain or first officer, monthly schedules, vacation, pay, career earnings... everything!

The seniority system is a great equalizer. Once you manage to get hired by a major airline, your career trajectory is pretty much set. You are added to the bottom of the pilot seniority list, and from that point onward, the order of the pilots on the seniority list never changes. The pilots who are senior to you will always be senior to you and have first crack at a job opening or trip bid ahead of you. And likewise, you get the first shot at any opportunity ahead of all the pilots behind you on the seniority list. It no longer matters what your gender or race is, who your squadron buddy is, or who your daddy is. All of the opportunities that are available, will be available to you, based on your seniority.

Movement on the Seniority List

You gain seniority when:

• You are at a regional or smaller airline and the pilots senior to you leave the company, usually as they are hired by a major airline.
  
• Pilots senior to you retire, which can be when they reach the mandatory retirement age of 65 (in the U.S.), retire early, or if they lose their medical clearance.
  
• Your airline merges with another one and you gain position in the integration of the seniority lists (this change can be small or large).
  
• There is an economic boom, airline growth and hiring, new routes and aircraft and bases, and new-hire pilots are added to the bottom of the seniority list.

Your seniority advancement can stall when:

• You are at a regional or smaller airline and the pilots senior to you stay put, because the major airlines stopped hiring.
  
• The U.S. Congress raises the retirement age for airline pilots and suddenly a bunch of pilots senior to you get to keep working for an extra five years (as occurred in 2007).
  
• The economy and the airline go into a sort of holding pattern, with no growth and no contraction.

You can lose seniority when:

• You take an extended leave of absence under certain conditions (particular to each airline and its policies and union contract).
  
• Your airline merges with another one and you lose position in the integration of the seniority lists (this change can be small or large).
  
• There is an economic downturn, the airline shrinks and contracts, and due to overstaffing it displaces pilots and furloughs the junior pilots — more on this, below.

Relative Seniority

Once you are established in a specific position, which consists of a specific aircraft, seat, and base, such as 737 Captain in Chicago, then the seniority that impacts your day-to-day quality of life is relative seniority, which is where you stand in seniority relative to the sub-group of pilots in the exact same position. From this relative seniority position, you will bid on and be awarded your monthly work schedule, which could be a set of trips or days being on reserve (on call), and it will affect whether those trips are high-time, efficient trips for higher pay with fewer work days overall, or if you will work 2 or 4 more days per month to earn the same pay, and whether you will get weekends and holidays off or not. And you will bid on and be awarded your vacation — will vacation fall over July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas? Or somewhere in October and February?

Your relative seniority can shift month to month and over time due to other pilots deciding to come in or leave that position, and whether those pilots coming and going are senior or junior to you.

Position

Every pilot hired by a U.S. airline is added to the bottom of the pilot seniority list, and this includes if and when a pilot changes airlines. No matter the pilot’s prior experience and qualifications, they are placed “number last” upon hiring by a new airline. My airline has hired 747 pilots with 20,000 hours, U-2 pilots with Top Secret clearances, very high-ranking military officers, and even astronauts... and like any other new-hire pilot, they are placed at the bottom of the seniority list.

A civilian-trained pilot will typically gain experience and qualifications by flying for a regional airline before getting hired by a larger national or global major airline. It is more rare for a pilot flying for a major airline to switch to a different major airline, due to the effect of starting at the bottom of the seniority list again... the "golden handcuffs” factor.

The entry-level position for airline pilots is the first officer position (second-in-command or “right seat”). There are times when the major airlines were hiring regional airline captains so fast that some regional airlines ended up without any first officers qualified to upgrade to captain, and so they hired direct-entry or "off-the-street" captains. But please note: those direct-entry captains were still given seniority numbers at the bottom of the seniority list as new-hires. And the hiring of direct-entry captains is completely unheard-of at the majors.

The captain position (pilot-in-command or “left seat”) is more senior in rank than first officer, and the job pays more, reflecting command duties and responsibilities. The time to advance from first officer to captain is entirely based on growth and movement on the seniority list, and historically that could take anywhere from 6 months to 3-5 years at a regional airline and from 3-5 years to 20 years at a major airline.

Crew Base

At each airline, there are bases that tend to be “more senior” and “more junior”, because a base is larger with more job opportunities, or not, or it is in a city with a low cost of living in a desirable region, or not.

Aircraft

Most large airlines have several aircraft types, and pilots tend to gravitate towards the larger, newer, shinier ones. The major airline fleets generally break down to two categories — widebody aircraft, which are the large heavy aircraft placed on the longhaul overseas routes: Airbus A350, Boeing 747, 777, 787, and similar aircraft with two aisles in the coach cabin. And narrowbody aircraft used for shorter domestic flights: Airbus A320, Boeing 737, and similar with a single aisle in the cabin. The pay is higher for widebodies, so these positions “go more senior".

Quality of Life

Every individual pilot has important quality-of-life factors that go into their decision-making with regards to making job choices. They weigh factors such as: Do I want to earn more money? Have more days off at home? Have more flexibility about dropping and trading trips? Want to live in a rural area? Want to be near family? Want to live in a nice place and commute to a crew base? Or want to avoid commuting? Want to avoid more training?

This is the main reason that you see pilots with the seniority to hold a captain position choosing instead to remain first officers. As a junior captain, the quality of life could be significantly worse that that of a very senior first officer who gets first choice of monthly schedules and vacation. And some pilots really enjoy the job and lifestyle of the widebody longhaul overseas flying, and do not want to trade that to do narrowbody short-haul domestic flying as captain, not even for higher pay.

Displacements, Part I

Airline pilots are only qualified to fly one aircraft type at a time (exception: 757/767), and must undergo 4-8 weeks of training when changing to a new aircraft type.

Overstaffing of pilots for a fleet or a base can trigger displacements that bump pilots from their positions, such as when:

• A crew base is closed.
  
• An aircraft type is eliminated from a crew base, possibly shifted to a different base.
  
• An older fleet is drawn down and retired.
  
• A fleet experiences a dramatic mechanical issue that grounds it for an extended period (e.g. 737 MAX in 2019-2020).
  
• There is an economic downturn and the airline shrinks and contracts . . . and displaces and furloughs pilots.

Furloughs

A downturn in the economy, a decreased demand for air service, and the resultant contraction and reduction of the flight schedule results in an airline being overstaffed with pilots. Some pilots will leave through the attrition of retirement.

And then the airline must consider furloughing pilots. It is very costly to furlough pilots, due in no small part to the high cost of re-training the returning pilot to currency and proficiency or on a new aircraft, which could be as high as $50,000 per pilot. I have heard that it makes economic sense only if the pilot will be furloughed for at least two years.

Furloughs are done in reverse seniority order: last hired, first fired. Furloughed pilots are considered to be unemployed, with no pay or benefits, but they aren’t “fired". By union contract, when the airline needs more pilots, they will recall all of the furloughed pilots in seniority order before hiring any new pilots. Sometimes the pilots can defer or delay their return to work, if they had managed to get some other lucrative job or went back to active duty military flying, for example.

Furloughs can go deep, as they did after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Within a year, more than 7000 pilots, or about 7-1/2 percent of the U.S. airline pilot workforce, were on furlough. Some returned within a couple of years; for others, it took over 11 years.
 

Displacements, Part II

When there are job vacancies and hiring, pilots get to bid for those jobs based on seniority, leaving a job that triggers a new job opening, and in this way, a bunch of pilots can advance to higher positions, with new-hires filling in the junior positions.

When there are reductions in jobs and displacements, it all rolls backwards / downhill. A pilot being displaced from a senior job such as 777 captain might go to 737 captain. This might bump a 737 captain to the 737 first officer position. And that might bump the most junior 737 first officer onto the street (furlough).

The reduction of flights and resultant reduction of jobs might affect particular fleets and crew bases, yet the effects can ripple through the whole seniority list.

At one major U.S. airline, when there are displacements, the pilots being displaced get to bid for any job throughout the entire system that their seniority allows them to hold — they can get any job that has just one pilot in it who is junior to them. Bids are awarded in seniority order, so you might not get your first choice, even if it first appears that you could. Each displacement could trigger a secondary displacement, in which displaced pilots coming in bump the most junior pilots out, and those junior pilots must likewise find places to land which they have the seniority to hold. The displacement process might vary somewhat at other airlines according to the union contract, but it will follow this general path.

There are many factors that go into these decisions by pilots who know for certain they are being displaced, and for everyone else who has to make contingency plans in case they will be displaced in the big shuffle (a huge unknown). Every pilot who has some seniority must ask themselves: Do I want to remain in the base, or am I willing to commute or move? Do I want to stay on this aircraft or am I willing to be trained on a new one? Do I want to cling to the captain seat or am I willing toreturn to being a first officer? And what will give me the most money /flexibility / time off / job satisfaction? There is no single answer that is right for everyone.

And the most junior pilots, in the most junior positions as narrow body first officers at a junior base, have few options. They will be waiting to hear if they will be furloughed or not, and must plan accordingly.

Ripple Effect

When the major airlines stop hiring and begin furloughing, the effects ripple throughout the industry. When this happens, it is a great time to add more ratings, hone pilot skills, and build flight time.

May your dreams take flight!

© 2022 Jenny Beatty. All Rights Reserved.

Photo: Overseas National Airways Pilots’ Seniority List dated 1 July 1977, page four, showing pilots #151 to #184 with date of hire, status (date of furlough), and crew base

Photo credit: Overseas National Airways crew website