Early Retirement?
 

Apropos to the recent discussion.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020...market-vo.aspx

I'd recommend Delta reinstate retirement for guys say 3000 ish and above on seniority list or whatever a good number would be at the 60%FAE. That would preserve the young guys (if it got that bad), fix the deadzoners argument, ensure a lower training thrash, no furloughs, etc.

For how long? Til 65? SILS would be more cost effective than a lifetime annuity. Losing 500-800 per year through normal retirements is crushing the training pipeline. Any early retirement offers would.have to be carefully managed. Balancing by fleet is an option, but that creates a seniority abrogation argument.

I'd like that plan!!! :) I'd be gone in a New York second! .....if I could hold it.

Denny

In no circumstance will there be any significant FAE to all pilots locked in for life at the recent high water marks. Million dollar 350 pilots, buddy bidding triple dippers, etc. Not for a private company anyway. Its not like we're a municipal government that can simply take it from the taxpayers.

Last time they had early retirements and furloughs. They ended up furloughing the bottom 1000 or so and brought back the early retired guys to fly at full pay while receiving full retirement pay. They were not even on our seniority list. The union condoned and endorsed this staffing solution.

How solid would a DB be? This whole crisis in my opinion just validates the value of a 401K. Yes the markets are tanking and 401s are taking a hit. But seeing how quickly the airlines can turn from wildly profitable to disaster would anyone feel secure with a “promise” of a DB? I would not.

If we had enough folks dependent on a DB the company would use it as golden handcuffs to get us to gut our PWA to save the DB. How much value would a 60+ year old Pilot put on QOL items or pay vs protecting the DB? How about a 63 year old Pilot? How much would they be willing to give away to protect the DB at all costs? I don’t blame them, I would probably think the same way if I were in that situation.

Finally how hard would it be for the company to dump the DB in times such as these? In my mind this whole Coronavirus issue highlights the shortcomings of a classic DB. Could we perhaps come up with some kind of different DB that is not subject to being liquidated? I have heard guys mention an annuity in everyone’s name but I am not sure of how much that would cost. I just have a suspicion that if we currently had a DB the company would have a lot more leverage over the Pilot group than they currently do.

Scoop

Wait, what? Can you give more details on this? (Not doubting, just never heard anything about this before)

How did that even make sense, aren't senior guys way more expensive than junior guys?

I took a early retirement in September of 2012. Three months pay and money in a Retirement Medical Account to pay for private health insurance until I turned 65. I was one month shy of 63 and got around 42K. I have stayed on my wife’s health insurance and still have about 25K left. Best thing I ever did.

Too many left small senior categories too soon to be replaced witout grounding planes or even one entire fleet, so supposedly it would have destroyed the airline by grounding panes due to no pilots until their replacements could be trained.