Ed Bastian letter to Bernie Sanders
 

Not sure if Flight Ops also received the email about Ed Bastian replying to Bernie Sanders about the video game flyer and all the negative publicity that came with it.

Ed Bastian made several statements in his reply to Senator Sanders including:

"When Delta faced bankruptcy a decade ago, we were the only airline that fought to retain our people’s pension plans. It required an act of Congress, including a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate, to approve a rule change that preserved the accrued benefits our people had earned."

I'm sure most of you have a different recollection of what Ed did to the pilots pension plan in bankruptcy. Or am I wrong?

That must be in reference to NWA.

It certainly wasn't Delta.

Well you know he didn't dream up that idea. He had such a hard time sleeping, because he didn't take enough from the pilots...

One wonders if our cba is gonna join the food fight.

Whats laughable is delta extracted a condition that the pbgc would not hand the pilots pension back to delta if the company survived and prospered. Which in light of our economic performance is likely what the pbgc would have done.

I don’t think the PBGC would have handed it back. They protected themselves well by taking a share of ownership in Delta. Taking over the Delta pilot pension plan earned the PBGC a profit not loss which is the reason many Delta pilots will enjoy a very high PBGC payout. When the plan was frozen each pilot received a accounting for what their earned and accrued benefit was at that point. In my case using the projected PBGC payment at 65 combined with the MPP and note money produces a net benefit well above my frozen plan. Using the age 60 PBGC number still produces at least parity. My frozen benefit was 106,000 per year. I would not trade what I have for my frozen plan under any circumstances.

FWIW, Mr B doesn't consider the pilot group to be employees in the traditional sense. From many of his statements over the years, it would seem his opinion is that the pilots are nothing more than a contractor to Delta. Conjecture on my part, but I'm sure that sentiment is widely shared at the executive level. In that light, I'd guess, we can find some truthiness in his response to "The Bern."

Thats an odd calculation. I dont view the note and claim as offsets for lost pension value. I dont think they were ever advertised as such.

My view was they were to offset wage and work rule concessions.

My age 60 earned db annuitized payout was abt $140k. My pbgc age 60 payout was abt $65k. At age 65 its supposed to be $85k.

Its not even close.

Nevermind we go to work every trip to produce revenue that since bankruptcy has funded all the other employee pension plans to the tune of billions of dollars.

Our ceo's self righteous protests white washing deltas history are clear indication of the distain and disregard he has for the pilot group.

He got over on this pilot group. Bigtime. He almost did it again with the moronic PS trade of TA1.

Stop making excuses for a ceo that the day after bankruptcy filing had the court terminate the annuitized pension payments to retired pilots......simply because he could.

Completely despicable.

BobZ, don’t forget that he stayed awake many nights fretting because he did not take more from you at the time.

I am not sure how you had a 140,000 earned and accrued payout. Given your still working now and your age in 2004 that would have required a FAE of about 400,000. Possible but not easy to do back then unless you had a massive amount of green slips.
As far as the claim I did not mention it. The note was negotiated and directly tied to the pension. In fact the 650 million dollar note was only payable if the pension plan was terminated. Had the plan survived there was no note payment.
Your age 60 payout is about 13,000 a year more than mine. Your age 65 payout is exactly the same. Not sure why that is. Your 65 payment should be higher based on the FAE and your age 60 amount. I would ask the PBGC for a accounting. For perspective I have a friend who was hired one year earlier than me at NWA. His frozen benefit is 84,000 a year. He was a 757 CA at the time.