badflaps

Did everybody go to engineers school?

NWA320pilot

Your method is still random....... If you really support class seniority based on experience then age has nothing to do with it. In my career I have flown with young bucks that have a lot more time/experience than some older folks. To go down your path Delta would need to utilize some form of metric based on flight time/experience to assign class seniority.

TED74

It's not my method, it's the method used effectively elsewhere. It's easy, since age is black and white...so no algorithm to debate over what experience (life, total, multi, jet, civ, mil, number of divorces, years driven with or without DUIs, number/frequency/severity of STDs, the list is infinite) does or doesn't affect Captainhood. You misunderstand the concept of randomness...which the SSN method is (or nearly so). I just offered that there is at least SOME correlation to relevant experience (correlation>0) using age, and already acknowledged the deviations from the mean like those for which you have personal anecdotes.

If you try and write an experience algorithm to sort a class by, you'll have a thousand pages of debate...way more than these few entries about age vs SSN and fewer people will be content than are right now.

NWA320pilot

So am I understanding you correctly that you assume of those hired the experience level is was greater with age overall?

TED74

Yes, I believe that if you sort classes by age, that method will put more experience toward the top off the list than if you sort by SSN, or randomly. It may or may not hold true for a single class, but I think it would over time.

LeineLodge

If it were safer to have only the oldest pilots be the Captains, then we would just do away with seniority list, and put everyone in their seat based on age. It's not, so we don't.

The wheels come off your theory when you expand it beyond a single newhire class. The youngest guy in this week's class will always be senior to the oldest guy in next week's class. Does that make our operation inherently less safe because the youngster this week could be a Captain before the greyhead next week? The answer is no.

I can get on board with the theory that the older pilot has less time, so why not throw him a bone and order everyone by age, like most other airlines do. However, to say that there is a safety advantage associated with that method is really reaching.

NWA320pilot

Hate to tell you but I disagree with your metric..... Age has no bearing on experience. Now if you wanted to use the age argument based on total years of earning potential then I could see that.

TED74

I know better than to think everyone agrees with my opinions. Although over a sample size large enough, increased age will, indeed, yield more general experience and by definition more "life experience", which I value in a Captain. Passengers do too, as Sully will tell you having heard many passengers describe their pleasure in seeing gray hair in the cockpit on his big day.

Like you, and WAY more than this experience/age correlation concept, I value the earning years benefits of sorting by age. I also like those with fewer "working recovery years" to stay on property longer or continually during furlough. The whole concept is a bucket of goodness and that's probably why United still uses it despite being as politically correct as any corporation.

It's funny that anyone would charge age discrimination in this industry, which uses a min age for ATP certification and specifically age discriminates everyone at age 65 independent of one's actual health. Come think of it, isn't that gender description, since men and women don't have identical health risks in their sixties???

BlaneO

Time for a separate thread...

ScooterE6

Please ....