That is precisely my point. But there are a lot of folks on this forum and others that are screaming it's the new "B" scale at AA. As I stated in an earlier post, the "A" plan only provides about a third of a pilots retirement, which makes it much smaller than plans that were terminated at DAL and UAL. Furthermore, it's funded to 100%, in fact it was funded to 142% 2 years ago, and 120% last year. AMR has made zero contributions to the plan for almost 3 years. On top of that, if the plan assets return 9% annually, AMR will never have to make a contribution. However, if new hires start coming in, the picture changes, since the plan assets will have to increase proportionally.

In my personal case, should the plan be terminated and the PBGC were to start paying my benefit, I expect my loss to be on the order of 10 to 20% annually. That's a far cry from the 80K to 100K our UAL and DAL brothers have suffered.

The question that must be answered is how big a contribution to a 401K match or "B" plan is needed to replace the "A" plan. My guess is not much, and because of that, there will be the perception that it's a new "B" scale.