Sorry Pi - I didn't see this post until after it was quoted by someone else. For some reason when I make a post, the little icon that takes one to new posts in the tread skips those posted while I was typing up a reply/post and goes directly to the next post after mine.
The west F/O slotted directly above me is younger than me, has never been a captain or a widebody F/O. I am currently a east captain, could be a secondary A330 F/O lineholder, 76I lineholder. So, if Nic was implemented tomorrow, that pilot could take any opening before me and for the rest of our careers, positions he never had the expectation of.
First, you've got to remember the date that Nic was charged with using for merging the lists. Go back to that date and see how much your position differed from that West pilot.
By looking at the effect of the Nic list today, you're including post-merger events - the ex-ATA 757's, the ETOPs mods on East 757's, the 190's, etc. Possibly even the furlough of West pilots. Because East has made out much better than West post-merger, any comparison today is skewed because of those post-merger changes. You're saying "Because I benefited from these changes, the guy ahead of me on the Nic is getting a windfall." His (her) windfall is only a windfall if you include those post-merger changes and the benefit you got from them - meaning you got a windfall because they weren't shared with the West.
The hand writing was on the wall about the age 60 rule changing, it was just a question of when.
It may have been on the wall, but it was awfully faint and smeared. Nobody could say "On this date the retirement age will change."
So, no F/O has any protection, but those in the top 517 got all the protection, and they didn't need it!
Under Nic, correct with possibly very few exceptions - are there any "career F/O's" in that 517?
What it boils down to is that there were (and are) several ways to give East widebody protection. One was the way Nic did it, which fit with the way he integrated the rest of the list - by jobs. East had widebody jobs and West didn't, so widebody slots were given to East pilots before he got to the common equipment.
Another way is the one you suggested - start integrating the lists from the top with some ratio equal to the ratio of active pilots on each side but allow only East pilots to bid the widebody jobs for some period of time. The biggest problems there are splitting apart the 767 from 757 jobs on the East side (forcing the company to make them separate bids runs afoul of one of the company's criteria for a combined list) and using one ratio for integrating the lists doesn't fit reality - the ratio of 757 jobs would be different than the ratio 737/A320 jobs.
Of course you have the right to your opinion, it just stings to those that flew with you, and makes us question the basis for your reasoning. You have no dog in this fight , but continue to hammer away at us. If this had been a straight relative position I might be able to agree with you.
My reasoning is simple and I've expressed it several times - if you could put the integrated list into effect on the date it was designed for (ALPA's PID, in the case of Nic) and let everyone bid anywhere their new seniority number would allow (a system flush, in other words), nearly everyone would be doing the same thing as the day before - no one gains and no one loses except those that desire the new bases the merger made available to them. Those that saw a slight difference would be those on the edge, so to speak - on the edge of holding bigger equipment, on the edge of being bumped to smaller equipment, on the edge of holding Captain, on the edge of losing Captain. You'd probably see no more difference than you currently see between East bases - able to hold Capt in LGA but not CLT, able to hold blockholder in DCA but not PHL, etc. What you wouldn't have is junior F/O's (or even furloughed non-MDA pilots) suddenly senior to Captains from the other side or vice versa, like you do with a DOH list.
The whole "DOH = seniority" thing is silly to me and for the life of me I can't understand how any East pilot could put forward that idea. Just look at the seniority ups and downs experienced by East pilots the years while the amount of time lapsed since DOH only moved in one direction - increasing every day. How anybody can say that a constantly increasing value - time since hired - can equate seniority which varies both up and down is beyond my comprehension except for one factor...it favors those that have been around the longest and progressed the least for that time spent over those who haven't been around as long and progressed faster. What it says to me is "You young punks (to borrow from EastUS) don't deserve what you've gotten so we'll take it away and give it to those on our side who are more entitled to it."
Jim
