Originally Posted by
Ray Red
You are smoking some good stuff if you think specific opening positions will be released to the pilot group. It will be written in generalities like "much improved pay, retirement, and work rules". They will not say we opened with a 20% pay increase.
How can you say retirement is sorely lacking for all Delta pilots? Even with no improvement to the DC, we (and many other airline pilots) have a retirement program that most people would not believe. If you are approaching retirement then you will be sorely disappointed that you will not be getting a 60% FAE. It's just not going to happen. To provide near term retirees with a 60% FAE would take too much of the contract money pie at the direct expense of us newer guys. Junior pilots and even mid seniority pilots are not onboard with an attempted money grab.
Agree. But our retirement program is so good for a few reasons, mainly though that we are not allowed to work past 65. Other people don’t get sent packing from their careers at 65. For those of you that haven’t had to find work outside of the cockpit (ie. those of us who’ve been furloughed had the “pleasure”...) you’ll find out that our unique skills don’t amount to anything that’s transferable to another job...except maybe Walmart greeter or golf course marshal...
So we have a unique retirement situation. And we are just slightly in a highly trained line of work. You want the skilled pilots? Best of the best? Safe. Then it’s going to cost you. We ate the &$#@ sandwich for many years. Now it’s time to reap the benefits of a bull market for pilots. Maybe the best bull market ever. We still haven’t recouped where we were... even when we don’t account for the loss of pension.
We all need to realize this and I don’t plan on rolling over and accepting scraps. I’m not a burn it down guy. But I know that we can improve our lot and have incrementally done so over the past few contracts and this is the final step to regain our worth that we gave up so quickly so long ago.