I respect your opinion but I don’t agree with it.

I want an industry standard contract

Put another way, I'm a reserve guys and will be for a loong^2 time. How do you think it'd feel if some guy came on here and said I'm not on reserve, I'll never be on reserve, so I don't want one penny going on reserve improvements and put that towards increasing my 12th yr payrate even more. So far I haven't seen anyone write that publicly. Yet here and on Alyeska, there are VX guys calling for removing pensions going forward. Since you're on the topic of pensions is it fair to assume an industry standard contract looks at it section by section? Our DC retirement is 15.5%. Today AA/DL/UA get 16%. HAL, JBLU, and SWA are 15%. 15.5% seems to be industry average today.

Now we've all seen the video valuing status quo and rebalance math as $13/hr off the rest of the pilot group. That kind of divisive math should not divide us. Those kinds of tactics are typical throughout history to get one part of the pilot group to turn against another. Anyway I'm impressed with the L-AS pilots professionalism on forums, not a single AS pilot responded in this thread. :)

I'd like to see a statistic on how much of our flying is outsourced compared to other airlines (that outsource)

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x2.

Flip side of that is calls to spend negotiating capital on enhancing the DC for those who have the DB. If you go there, why not also try to get a DB for the folks who don't have it? All hypothetical, frankly in today's world I would not want my retirement in the hands of the company, the stock market is risky but at least you have a measure of control there.

If you’re not going to stand up for their pension, why should they stand up for our scope? Why should they worry themselves with section 25? They won’t be the ones to feel the effects of the ever growing outsourcing. Most of them will be long retired when the first 190’s “operated by Skywest”, start parking at our gates. So why should they give it a second thought? Most of them are already near the top of the list and get much better schedules than most of us so why would they ask to sacrifice negotiating capital on anything other than pension strength and pay increases. I live in base, commuter friendly lines are not necessarily my immediate concern. Should I not bother standing up for better schedules and commutability? If this is going to devolve into divided groups throwing each other under the bus, we may as well just sign a contract extension right now. Sadly, this thread is proof that managements propaganda is working all too well. We’ve already reached the “every man for himself” stage and negotiations just opened this week.... I was told that VX brought over 800 guys ready to fight for better?!?!

There are basically two rational long term retirement investment strategies. Which one you should exercise depends on your assumptions. The first assumes that there will NOT be a total meltdown of the US economy. The second assumes there WILL be a total meltdown of the US economy.

1. Invest in a well diversified stock portfolio or BETTER YET Index 500 mutual funds. Reinvest dividends and realized capital gains. In good times, you’ll be making more than the overwhelming majority while owning a share of the entire economy. In bad times, you will be buying An increasing share of the market at a discounted rate.

2. Buy and store guns, ammo, and freeze dried food, because you are going to need them.

The reason for not trying to reinstate a DB plan is the fact that AS will absolutely NOT go for it. Until they "solved" the problem over a decade ago, the DB plan was costing them $100M a year to keep it solvent. Why? Because they had shifted from buying retirees annuities to self-financing the plan.

Since Shy says the VXers never had a DB plan, I don't see the problem. Believe me, getting 15.5% in a DC plan sounds GREAT considering all I ever got was 3% coupled with the DB plan with a half lump sum payout.

I agree with you...I prefer having my advisors manage my 401k money than to have a pension that never changes regardless of the economic landscape.

What makes you think he/she is ex-virgin? That’s pretty presumptuous of you buddy. Now who’s giving VX guys a bad reputation.

The guys who had their pension should be allowed to keep it and like it or not, we ALL should fight to defend that. In addition, we should fight to improve the 401k that's in place for the rest of us....

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