Regional Airlines: Seniority and Bases

DH has been on with a regional airline for a little over two years now. There is a lot going on within the system and a heck of a lot to learn, but I think after two years I might actually have it down to a science.

The first thing you have to know about any airline is that everything is based on seniority. Airlines have thousands of pilots as employees with the only main interaction being between the first officer, the captain, the flight attendants and the gate agents. While the captain has the ultimate say as to what goes on in the airplane, he's not really "the boss". The actual bosses are managing hundreds of pilots at once and rarely know your name. While I think it's refreshing to watch an industry where the majority of the employees govern themselves and truly work together as a team, this does mean that promotions and base transfers are never based on merit and you can't really ask for a raise. Everything is earned based on the amount of time you've been with the company.

With DH's airline they have a constant bidding system where you can put in a request to be upgraded from first officer to captain or request to change bases or airplanes. Since it's based on seniority this means that someone with higher seniority than you can bump you down on the request list even if you put in your bid first. However, if you've been granted a base and later someone with higher seniority wants into the same base they can't bump you out of the base. But when a slot in your base does open up they'll still have more seniority than you.

Now let's talk about bases for a minute. In every airline they have a list of everywhere their pilots can be based out of. Bases in high demand that don't have very many pilots new to the company are called senior bases. Bases where all the new guys usually get sent to are called junior bases. The order of bases from senior to junior changes occasionally due to demand and it isn't open or common knowledge to anyone not with the airline. When we were researching airlines and saw that DH's airline had a Seattle base, we had no idea if it was something he could get right away or if it was something we would be waiting forever for. After getting into the airline and taking a look at all the people who wanted into Seattle we had estimated it was going to take about five years before he could get based where we live. BUT! It's been two years and he'll be transferred to Seattle next month. Things change, bases have expanded while other bases close. If there's one thing I can guarantee about this industry it's that there are no guarantees.