Originally Posted by Hillbilly

I disagree with that description. Age 65 occurred in mid December 2007. The pension was first "soft" frozen in December 2004. IIRC the last lump sums were paid out in September 2005. If you use either of those dates (which were both before the actual termination and the PBGC assuming authority over the pension), then the absolute youngest a deadzoner could have been in December 2004 would have been 57. Anybody over 50 was age eligible to retire at the time. The pilots you describe were very unlucky with timing, chose poorly by not taking the lump sum and were SOL with the timing of the transition to age 65.

I think a deadzoner was a pilot who was unable to retire, because they had not reached the minimum age required of 50, and take what they had accrued, minus penalties for going early, for the lump sum before the music stopped on that in 2005. They had no choice. A 49 year old in 2005 would have been 51 in 2007 when the age 65 rule went into effect. That pilot would have retired at age 65 in 2021. That pilots accrual in the DC plan would have been anemic from 2007 until C2012. As you look at pilots who were younger than that example in 2005, the younger you go, the muddier the waters get in reconciling the "too young to retire with the DB and not enough years remaining in the DC to make up the difference". Someone retiring this year would have been 47 when the music stopped for being able to retire with the soft frozen DB and take a lump sum, but since they weren't 50, they weren't eligible. That same 47 year old got some note and claim money, which wasn't much, a small DC contribution until C2012 and then they have been getting a decent DC contribution since. If they have been all in themselves on maxing contributions, they won't be greeting people entering the local Walmart or in the line at the local soup kitchen, but they also won't have what a Delta pilot who retired at 60 in mid 2004 had. Over the next few years, I think that will change and we will reach a point where a pilot retiring now will have more than the old timers did. Lots of variables there since the DB was a guarantee till death unencumbered by the market fluctuations.

Just my opinion, but there are still definitely some pilots on property who are in that deadzone. Even the ones who haven't made a bunch of ****ty financial/life decisions. They still haven't accrued enough DC to equal what the old DB would have given them. Every year that passes, they are becoming extinct. In another 5 years, I'm not sure any will exist. JMO