Originally Posted by
John Carr
Indeed, money isn't everything. But C2000's defined benefit was a hell of a deal, and so was "vacation override".
The latter meaning, you can NEVER get the time back you spent at work, away from the family, hobbies, passions, whatever. Vacation override gave a metric crap ton of that.
Vacation override was a smoking deal, which will never come back. It was nice, while it lasted. We are stuck being productive pilots. The market simply won't let us survive any other way.
Defined Benefit plans. Probably the same. But 3 billion in stock buybacks would have sure looked better being put into the companies old A plans.
One of the reasons contracts take so long to negotiate, is all the participating parties are profiting by its' delay. The company gets us to work for less, and dozens, if not a few hundred ALPA guys get 90 hours a month, for YEARS, staying at the Ritz, full per diem, to negotiate. Every hear the joke about a divorce lawyer not wanting a quick and easy divorce? It is the same.
For industry standard pay raises, and maybe a few other enhancements, I would prefer to simply extend the current contract as far out in the future as possible. The only losers during contract negotiations, are us.