TED74

They do, which is why they say PS payout was "$1.1B, and $1.3B with benefits."

GivemeVSP

Overstating the value...all pay should be pensionable period. 14.1% period nothing more Yea, yea, but the United comparison...doesn’t matter.

Jaxs170

There’s a side letter (which, of course, they won’t publish) that defines how the pool payout works.

The total pool is generated as has been mentioned previously:

-10% of PTIX up to $2.5 billion
-20% of PTIX above $2.5 billion

After the pool is formed, it gets divided up:

-Approximately 1/3 to pilots
-Approximately 2/3 to everyone else

So, if the pool is $1 billion, the pilots split approximately $333 million amongst us.

The percentage each pilot receives from that pool is determined by using each pilot’s eligible earnings and dividing it amongst the total eligible earnings for the entire pilot group.

After you get your amount from the pool add the 16% DC contribution.

Clear as mud?

sailingfun

So if they change the profit sharing in the coming contract to non pensionable it won’t matter to you or other pilots? I can assure you it matters to me!

Scoop

Dude,

Not sure what you are getting at. Plenty of things suck at the Big D. PS is not one of them.

For those interested in out PS history the following is what I could determine from talking to reps and reviewing old contracts and LOAs:

Delta Pilots Profit Sharing History Lesson

I have heard a lot of supposed reasons for why we achieved a PS payout. We have all heard it was due to our pensions being cancelled but according to my research we first achieved the current iteration of PS when we took the voluntary compensation cuts to avoid BK (LOA -46) OBTW – How did that work out?

DAL Pilots took over $1 Billion/year in cuts and subsequently agreed not to contest the DB termination in order to help the company survive. As insurance against the company becoming profitable while we were taking over $1B/year in concessions we achieved a PS payout. As far as I can tell PS was not originally about pensions being cancelled – the current iteration started 9 months prior to BK.

Here is a history of our PS
LOA 46 Effective 01 December 2004 Signed by John Malone/Gerald Grinstein
% of PTIX Paid under Program
$0 to $500 million 0.0%
Over $500 million to $1.5 billion 10%
Over $1.5 billion 20.0%

Original PTIX definition from LOA 46
PTIX will be calculated under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting
Principals and will exclude: (i) any extraordinary, non-recurring or
other special non-cash charges; (ii) charges with respect to the
grant or exercise of employee equity or options; (iii) charges with
respect to preferred stock dividends so that profit sharing does not
drive a preference for debt versus equity issuance and (iv) charges
with respect to payments under the Profit Sharing Plan.

DAL Files Bankruptcy September 14, 2005.

LOA 51 Effective 01 June 2006 Lee Moak/Gerald Grinstein
% of PTIX Paid under Program
$0 to $1.5 b billion 15.0%
Over $1.5 billion 20.0%
In the merger the 20% trigger was raised to 2.5 Billion.

In C2012 we made the following change:
$0 to $2.5 billion 10.0%
Over $2.5 billion 20.0%

TA-1 C-15 proposed this:
$0 to $6.0 billion 10.0%
Over $6.0 billion 20.0%

The TA-2 company proposal:
$0 to $2.5 billion 10.0%
Over $2.5 billion 20.0%
Eliminating 401 K contributions to PS
Detrimental changes to PTIX

During the 2015 Section 6 negotiations the PS was changed for all non-contract employees to the C-15 TA-1 proposal above. This was clearly done in anticipation of the Pilot group signing off on TA-1 which was fortunately soundly rejected. After running two separate PS formulas for a short time in the 2016-2017 timeframe, one for the Pilots and one for non-contract employees the company reluctantly matched the Pilots formula for all non-contract employees.

Our PS is currently determined by the formula agreed to in C-2012.

sailingfun

When you say profit sharing had nothing to do with pension termination you need to understand how the PBGC payouts would be determined. DALPA had to walk a very fine line with how offsets to pensions and payouts were calculated. We wanted to avoid any attempt by the PBGC to tie the claim money and PS to retirement. If the PBGC could establish a link it would be used to reduce PBGC payouts. They did a excellent job avoiding that outcome.

FMGEC

And our AA visitor should know that our PS is ALPA “dues-able” for some strange reason. 🤨

DELTAFO

The problem with that math is that the PWA is very explicit that the pilot profit sharing formula is:

10% PTIX up to $2.5 billion and
20% PTIX above $2.5 billion

It does not state that the non-pilot employees get to share that pool.

sailingfun

I would reread the contract. It’s very clear other employees share the pool.

Individual employee's annual compensation in the year in which the PTIX was earned as a percentage of total annual compensation for that year for all employees eligible for (a) the Delta Air Lines, Inc. Annual Profit Sharing Plan, or (b) the Delta Air Lines, Inc. Annual Profit Sharing Plan for Ground and Flight Attendant Employees. The Association will have the right to review the methodology and calculation of awards prior to such awards.

bugman61

The pool is not split. There is only one pool now. The ps % is determined my taking the pool and diving by the total eligible wages of participating employees. If in the end pilots get about 1/3, that’s only because pilots accounted for about 1/3 of the total wages.

The ps % each year depends on PTIX and total wages. We could have the same PTIX two years in a row and get a higher or lower percent depending on how much everyone else got paid, this is why the % has gone down over the years as we have hired more and everyone got raises.