For the record, I’m over 50 and was thousands of numbers senior to the UNA crowd - not even close to that line. While I’ve been very fortunate with my timing, I didn’t upgrade until I’d been here most of a decade.

Despite what Tailhookah thinks, I’m actually quite sympathetic to the plight of the DZ crowd, and am not just saying, “**** happens, suck it up”. But dude, it’s been seventeen years. How many contract cycles have come and gone in the time since then? And what about the pilots who retired a few years ago? They got to sling gear for an extra 5 years too. They got just as screwed over, but what do they get? The square root of nothing.

I’m also a realist. Pre-VEOP, when the company was printing $6B annually, it wasn’t unreasonable to include it in our ‘ask’. But now, 4 years later, the votes just aren’t there. The company is dragging is feet on inflationary pay raises, and it’s a huge cost item. I’d wager the current pilot group just doesn’t support it (though I’m not privacy to the polling data, I was polled on this exact question 10 days ago). The Min Balance is going to get thrown away in negotiations. And it’s not the “younger crowd’s” job to suddenly make (only) the last of the DZers “whole” when 3 previous contracts have not.