Originally Posted by EskimoJoe

American is on their 2nd round of bidding for leaves. 620 opted for early retirements. What the hell is taking Alaska so long to organize early out/ LOA bids? Let’s go.

Originally Posted by EskimoJoe

As per normal. Alaska comes up with the worst leave programs and our MEC buys off on this garbage. No early outs offered. Month to month 50 hr no-fly incentive lines if you can hold them. How many? Which bases? Who knows? Not eligible to bid incentive line if you have any pre-credit accruals for the bid month beyond a single day of vacation. i.e. if you have recurrent, you CANNOT bid an incentive line. Why? WTFK? You can take an unpaid voluntary though and get just the training pay. Great. Can’t plan beyond the next bid. Flying the line and selling severely discounted tickets is doing the exact opposite what the CDC says to do.

I wanted enough pay to cover the bills for a few months, save the company some money AND do my civic duty not to aid the spreading of the virus. Our MEC negotiated a program that makes all of this impossible.

Originally Posted by flysnoopy76

I’ve heard management has no appetite for paying for early retirements like American.

Originally Posted by Busdriver320

I believe you are confusing voluntary LOAs with "incentive" or no-fly lines.

VLOAs can be taken now, virtually no questions asked. 30-60-90-120 days. No pay. Company continues to pay health benefits (although yesterday's webcast seemed to erroneously outline that the company would pay the EMPLOYEE'S share...I thought they only paid theirs and the employee had to continue to pay their existing co-pays...this needs to be clarified)

Incentive lines (no-fly) will be coming and will be seniority based. They have two choices absent a MOU: pay everyone the CBA min of 75 and build lines for every bidder with way less block hours; or furlough, which they have stated over and over they don't (and can't if they take stimulus $). Saw a Rep last week and he confirmed they were working on details.
My guess is they'll be part of the monthly bid. Say there are 150 Incentive lines for SEA CA, lines 1-150 will be in the bid pack as worth X hours and show no trips. The rest will be normal lines, with perhaps less flying than 75 but still worth 75. Anyone senior who wants to make more $ can bid lines 1-150. The usual suspects will do so.

And yes, PBS would have allowed them to re-bid April. Will be interesting to see how much trips are cobbled up. Folks are going to show up for multi-day trips and fly 2-3 legs. Lots of time in hotel rooms!

Originally Posted by EskimoJoe

As per normal. Alaska comes up with the worst leave programs and our MEC buys off on this garbage. No early outs offered. Month to month 50 hr no-fly incentive lines if you can hold them. How many? Which bases? Who knows? Not eligible to bid incentive line if you have any pre-credit accruals for the bid month beyond a single day of vacation. i.e. if you have recurrent, you CANNOT bid an incentive line. Why? WTFK? You can take an unpaid voluntary though and get just the training pay. Great. Can’t plan beyond the next bid. Flying the line and selling severely discounted tickets is doing the exact opposite what the CDC says to do.

I wanted enough pay to cover the bills for a few months, save the company some money AND do my civic duty not to aid the spreading of the virus. Our MEC negotiated a program that makes all of this impossible.

Originally Posted by Bugaboo

Thankfully there are no added hours allowed if you are awarded an in incentive line.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

I'd only be interested in something like that if I could grab a lump sum. If the early retirement consists of collecting reduced monthly pay to age 65, well that only works until the BK filing.

And managers will not be interested in handing out a lot of lump sums right now, that's what actually pushed DAL over the Ch.11 edge in 2007.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

I'd only be interested in something like that if I could grab a lump sum. If the early retirement consists of collecting reduced monthly pay to age 65, well that only works until the BK filing.

And managers will not be interested in handing out a lot of lump sums right now, that's what actually pushed DAL over the Ch.11 edge in 2007.

Originally Posted by full of luv

well kind of apples and oranges comparison. There was a provision in Deltas pilot pension program that allowed anyone at anytime over 50 and with 20 yrs to retire early. Then there was another provision that allowed you to request 1/2 your pension up front as a one time payment instead of a lifetime annuity.

when the shat started hitting the fan many pilots exercised those pension plan provisions before the writing on the wall took shape.... namely UAL had already moved to cancel there pilot pensions via BK court and many knew that of/when delta followed suit that pbgc would eliminate those provisions as well as limit pension value so pilots that were old enough and senior enough got told by their CPAs that you need to retire now and take the lump sum.

that money just drained out of the pension funds not the company cash coffers but that combined with lousy stocks at the time would have forced massive cash inputs by delta in the near future if not taking a trip to see a Bk judge and hand the pension schemes to pbgc.