Carl,
I'm kinda new to forums in general and do not know how to cut and paste quotes so please bear with me.
As far as all your guys retiring in the next 10 years, I just perused your seniority list and saw numerous '85 hires with dates of birth of 1956 or later, many in 1960. You are assuming that all these guys are going to retire at age 60 or before and I think that is an invalid assumption, especially base on today's economic environment and even with out it.
A 10 year fence allows your SL pilots to take advantage of your retirement, as it should, but what about the HUGE number of DAL pilots that start retiring about 2019? You (NW pilots) get the advantage of that as well.
The Dal pilot list mitigates it just the same as the NW list does, only with a shorter 5 year fence during which most of your senior guys who would retire at 60 will be gone. (Thats up for debate as many have pointed out the high price of healthcare these days!!) I think, due to your hard frozen pension plan, most of your 1985 hires will more than likely stay longer than 60 because they do not have 25 years and, as stated before, high health care costs.
The argument about the 402 pilots at the bottom has been gone over and over. We will have to agree to disagree on that one. But putting approx. 28 percent of your pilot group in the top 15 to 16 percent of the combined list is incomprehensible to me.
I sure hope we, both merger committees, can work this out, but I have my doubts. One group has to come off their respective stance and I just dont see that happening.
Good luck to us all!!!!
I'd love to stay and chat but I have some beer to drink!!! "D Maybe I'll get back on in a little while after I'm all loosened up!!!
Denny