Premium - thanks for looking at the numbers but your math is wrong. If 31 guys have retired out of 126 total that have hit age 60 (or 30 years) than the number is about 25%not 6%. That number is much much higher than what I have seen actually happen in ANC. The guys that are leaving must be from SEA, PDX and LAX cuz they sure are not leaving up here!

Klsytakesit -that is an intersting idea. I have never thought of it like that. It seems accurate to me. A 30 year employee, at about $180 an hour with a 1.9% factor (status quo formula) will have a little over 100K in pension a year. So a line Captain over age 60 earning about 180K a year is actually working for about 80K. So that's about $80 to $90 an hour. Interesting way of looking at it..
Another interesting way to think about is that any pilot working past age 60 is leaving pension money behind that he could have brought home to his family. A guy is going to die whenever it is that he is going to die. Lets say that number is 85 years of age. So if I retire at 60, I get (hopefully) 25 years of pension checks. If I retire at 65, I get 20 years of pension checks. 5 years ($500,000) that my family never sees, that goes back into the pension to be spent by some other guy who retires early and lives a longer life.