This is waaaay too true. Every guy I’ve flow with that’s told me they’re retiring before 65 has stayed to the end. I’ll bump into them a yr or two later and say, “I thought you were outta here?”. They always say exactly that. “I make too much money and it’s the easiest schedule I’ve had my whole career. Why give it up now?”

The interest rate figures into the denominator of the retirement pay calculation. If rates are going up, retirement check goes down.

It’s not just the interest rates. Retiring at 60 means passing up 5 years of pay at about $250k per year, plus the additional 401k savings and Company match - not to mention prospective PBP payouts. That’s a lot of money to leave on the table. All of that outweighs any interest fluctuations. Another thing to consider is health care costs. Although retiring at 60 allows you and your spouse/family to stay on the Alaska health care plan, you have to pay the full premium. Staying to 65 means you can transition to Medicare and keep the spouse/family on the plan. The result is lower cost to you. Unless you have another job when you retire, the money you have saved up is what you’ll have to live on for the rest of your life. You can manage your investments to minimize the loss but your retirement nest egg is going to decrease over time so it makes sense to try to make the nest egg as big as you can before you retire. When to retire is an intensely personal decision. What may work for one doesn’t work for another, but there is no “wrong” answer. You just have to figure out what works best for you. Good Luck!

It's more than 250k. That's what it makes it hard to give up. :D

This is current as of the Aug 2019 seniority list:

Pilots on property: 3004

2019- 12 (5 have retired since Aug)
2020- 34
2021- 45
2022- 55
2023- 56
2024- 64
2025- 89
2026- 74
2027- 99
2028- 79
2029- 107

Total retirements in the next 10 years: 709
Seniority gain for a new hire today over the next 10 years: 23.6%
Total retirements in the next 5 years: 261
Seniority gain for a new hire today over the next 5 years: 8.6%

0% growth Imperial?...


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0% percent mainline growth is pretty close to accurate according to the current plan

Attrition is about to be HUGE. I know of at least 13 pilots here with multiple cjos elsewhere... and I do not know that many people.

Hope brad and Ben are ready for their operation to start seriously suffering over the holidays to do a mass exodus.

Both delta and ua have been sending out massive waves of invites in the past few weeks.

Not sure about growth or where someone would be on the seniority list in 5 or 10 years. I was just posting mandatory retirements.

You should read your contract again and ask the right department the right questions. You pay 50% of the cost, not the "full" premium. It's also a "cafeteria" type plan; you can choose what/which coverages you want (medical/dental/vision). Choosing the high deductible plan isn't wise as the company only makes HSA contributions for active employees, which probably makes the (slightly higher cost) low-deductible plan more attractive to most people.

The 2019 rate for a retiree and spouse, for low-ded medical + dental + vision was $820/month (or close, I'm not looking at the table they sent me right now).