What about a signing bonus with an end of contract annual pay rate adjustment?

 

I get it. A 40% raise costs well north of a billion annually and that money isn't currently there and wont be until we pay down our debt. The problem is, there is a legit pilot shortage and someone will end up without once the music stops. Working in our favor the industry has been able to build in a nearly 30% increase in RASM over the past two months alone, now an all time high. The CEOs for Hilton and Marriot were interviewed and talking about a 27% premium over 2019 highs. Viable businesses like Delta have been able to expand inflation well beyond costs as a final product to the consumer. There is no part of me that believes we will not return to QE, inflation is the only way forward without going into a Great Depression. My point, pay us in tomorrow's money but throw down an amount to make up for 2020-2023.

Six figure signing bonus into a tax free retirement vessel that's tradeable and DOUBLE our profit sharing percentages. Eliminate the <2.5B carveout. Restore the pre-C16 callout ladder (effectively end domestic system reserve). Positive Space to and from. Iron clad language with mandatory pulldowns for JV and CS flying. 30% for SLIs and LCA. Up front its a one time payment for a contract that was skipped, small overall costs to bolster our training department, ensure system reliability, end fatigue (the fatigue numbers in NYC need to be addressed) and pay the troops well going forward if we pull out of this. If the economy takes a dump, no 30% raise but everyone has a nice nest egg to dump into a depleted market at the bottom. If the market soars then profit sharing will make people very happy.

I think we said the same thing, I just spelled it out.

 

A very smart post. Just adding on:

The Fed is a lousy tool for fixing inflation. Rising interest rates and Fed pulling its cash off the table are crushing 401K's (which people don't spend today). Sure, this fixes inflation 10 to 20 years from now at the risk of many middle-class savers becoming wards of the state.

Inflation is caused by all the COVID $$ dumped by Trump, Congress and Biden into lower middle to poverty level folks who spend it like I eat Thin Mints during cookie season. Congress just can't stop trying to buy votes. This gets spent and bounces around 7 to 9x before it eventually finds its way into some monopolists' spreadsheet where it stops until they read Ayn Rand while taking a dump and decide to buy Twitter.

Great if you are broke, indebted with no realistic expectation of paying it back, and careless.

If you are the self-starter, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, save a few million and retire (as most pilots are) WE are getting our teeth kicked out and left out on the curb to die a slow and painful economic death.

Prognosis: long-term optimistic for our children.... The way things are going we might be living in their basement.

 

I don't know what pilots you know, but we are absolutely not bootstrap savers. Those are the minority and that's being generous.

 

Well, some are O5 or higher retirees; they did their service. The rest of us have socked away some % into some sort of an investment in hopes we can retire on the result.

 

I have to agree with Breezy here. Some do save/invest wisely…but plenty absolutely do not.

I would be interested to know what % of our pilot group puts at least 5% into their 401k

 

100% gets 16%

 

5% of their OWN money.

 

Depending on where they are coming from or their financial picture, 16% may be enough. They may not have to add any of their own money if they have a long term horizon or other income streams.

 

It doesn't matter how much you are putting into your 401k when, at 55, you take out a jumbo loan on your mansion with several $30k+ car loans and are paying for private college for 1-3 kids.

The amount of incredibly poor financial management here is astounding.