A DC increase is of less value then a pay raise for anyone senior on the property. After the company maxes out the DC bucket (which happens for most senior pilots) the DC match is paid as DC excess. This money does not count for profit sharing calculations where a straight pay raise would be counted toward profit sharing.

Agreed. We fortunately recognized the inevitable and made lemonade. There is some measure of serendipty also....there is no way mgmt calculated the ps #s or how the liability would infect all employee groups.

The delta pilots are the only employee group that took the pension hit. And the retired pilots have had no recovery.

There is no legal or regulatory compulsion to mitigate this reality. The argument would have to be for delta to do the right thing...encouraged by the active pilot group.

And setting up a retiree relief fund isnt a satisfactory solution.

Ok, but then we are just talking about a pay raise then.

I should of titled the damn thread Retirement Improvements instead of Return to Pensions. I am not inclined to have any retirement(s) that is not in my name and controlled by me. But we need more than just a pay raise...I am already capped out on the DC plan, ( mid level sen 9k ish) so more DC does not help and frankly wont do it. It is OK to examine and discuss other and frankly all options.
Can anyone answer my question does company stock awarded to an employee count against the dc 401k limits?

I'll pile on the bandwagon and say there is no freaking way I'd want to try the pension thing again if it isn't in my name.

I've rarely heard good things about annuities, too... Retiree medical I think is something reasonable and attainable, though.

At 15% (Delta rate IIRC) the company is not contributing as much as they could. You need a 20% DC to max it out. Anything less is leaving money on the table.

That very suggestion was made to CEO Richard Anderson. He responded: “We are not in a position to do that.” (translation: We don’t want to, and nobody can make us.”

I am not that senior, and I am maxing it out ( albeit with my 18k annual contrib), but still...its maxed...no more tax bennies or input after the 415 limit of 54k. Thats the whole point of my opening this thread, what can we get next...!!!

Edit, after the 401 hit the limit in early Dec, I got the overages of about 1100 in my check, so my real 401 contrib was in the order of 17k.

The company can't contribute more than x% x $275k. That is the most they are allowed to put into your 401k.

Why limit that?

I support adding additional tax deferred, bankruptcy proof vehicles but there aren't much available beyond the 401k. The non qualified deferred income schemes make sense for a Google employee but will go away in bankruptcy at the drop of a hat.

Ummm... no thank you.

Bro....nobody is talking about limiting that....we are talking about moving the bar forward AFTER that.