Well said, thanks.

Those who’ve been here the longest will not get much thanks from the newer younger gen. There will be outliers but just go back to the start of this thread and it’s obvious which ones only care about themselves and have zero compassion for those who got 5 more years or 17 years since then to plan accordingly. I’d bet many of those who I’m talking about are sub 30 year olds and single with 35+ years of PS and robust DC benefits to plan for. Many don’t give a crap about anyone else. It’s who they are.

Someday they may understand, especially after they get married. Have a few kids and then life’s curveballs begin to materialize and change their perfect plans.

You can’t fix ignorant. Only sometimes life and experiences can change that.

If you want to win the hearts and minds of the UNA, try not being a condescending prick.

You actually can fix ignorance with education. Here’s your chance. Tell us your story. Tell us why you need a minimum balance and maybe you’ll change some minds.

Classic Pot meet Kettle..

For every person “that should have planned better, has 10 boats and 4 ex wives” comment, there is also the “how am
I suppose to pay for 1.5 million dollar home we just bought? You need to help me”.

There’s a lot of talking past each other going on, but in my mind I have yet to see someone give me actual numbers where a person is BOTH materially suffering today due to the elimination of the pension AND where any amount of targeted min balance plus up would make a practical difference. People post what their claim/pgbc/note, but that’s not the whole story, since they’ve had 17 years to fund their 401k. Note I know that realistically that’s more like 12-15, since the first few years were at bankruptcy rates and the DC percentage wasn’t at its current rate. So the missing piece of the puzzle is someone’s 401k balance today, and I haven’t seen a single person lay out both their post-bankruptcy data as well as how much is currently in their 401k (and their projected balance depending on hours many years they have left to work), because that gives the full picture of what they are facing entering retirement.

And even if someone can show that they’ve been maxing out retirement for 10+ years + pgbc+note, etc and are still going to be in a pinch in retirement, I don’t see how any reasonable amount of plus money on the way out is going to change that scenario. I mean I’ve heard maybe giving a $300k lump sum, but at a standard 5% withdrawal rate that only gives you an additional $15000 per year in retirement, or $1250 per month. So it’s not an earth shattering amount.

As others have said many times the ones crying poor the loudest have a boat and two houses and fancy cars, so it’s just hard to conjure up sympathy and a need to sacrifice for them. Now if someone can lay out their full financial picture and show how a plus up would materially improve their retirement I’d be willing to listen and consider that.

[QUOTE=TED74;3531422]You actually can fix ignorance with education. Here’s your chance. Tell us your story. Tell us why you need a minimum balance and maybe you’ll change some minds.[/QUOTE

Lol, change minds. With pilots being the self absorbed, self righteous group they are?

How about why should someone hired tomorrow have a retirement account 4-5x no after 35 years than someone who has actually been here 35 years. Yeah yeah, black swan. That’s the excuse of someone who knows they will do better and just doesn’t wanna admit it

For the record, I’m over 50 and was thousands of numbers senior to the UNA crowd - not even close to that line. While I’ve been very fortunate with my timing, I didn’t upgrade until I’d been here most of a decade.

Despite what Tailhookah thinks, I’m actually quite sympathetic to the plight of the DZ crowd, and am not just saying, “**** happens, suck it up”. But dude, it’s been seventeen years. How many contract cycles have come and gone in the time since then? And what about the pilots who retired a few years ago? They got to sling gear for an extra 5 years too. They got just as screwed over, but what do they get? The square root of nothing.

I’m also a realist. Pre-VEOP, when the company was printing $6B annually, it wasn’t unreasonable to include it in our ‘ask’. But now, 4 years later, the votes just aren’t there. The company is dragging is feet on inflationary pay raises, and it’s a huge cost item. I’d wager the current pilot group just doesn’t support it (though I’m not privacy to the polling data, I was polled on this exact question 10 days ago). The Min Balance is going to get thrown away in negotiations. And it’s not the “younger crowd’s” job to suddenly make (only) the last of the DZers “whole” when 3 previous contracts have not.

We all have a say, because if there is going to be a lump sum payout, the cost is going to come out of potential gains in other areas of the contract. And since so few will benefit to the detriment of others, that cost matters to everyone.

As to your other points, I don’t really see UNAs continually begging for sympathy. There was certainly a lot of uncertainty, but basically everything was outside our control. If you’re mad about people having 18 months of a paid vacation, then aim your angst at the company who completely botched our staffing in a seeming effort to both take a jab at the pilot group and placate the FAs so they wouldn’t unionize. I’m not mad at people just because things worked out well for them during the pandemic. I’m not mad at people who have been here a long time and have tons of cool stuff. When you boil it down the plus up proposal is an unemotional math calculation. You can’t tell people to p*ss off when we bring up “emotional” arguments against the plus up when you emotionally attack the UNAs (some of whom I’m sure are blockheads about it).

In the end the pilot group was willing to make a small mathematical sacrifice for the potential furloughees (covering COBRA), but basically took no financial hit (unless you view a reduction in TLV range a hit) due to the bailouts and rapid recovery. Now people are being asked to make a potentially much larger sacrifice for a small group of pilots, and all I’m asking is for someone to make a mathematical argument why we should do so.

How many pilots would actually get a lump sum? How much would those lump sums total up to? These questions need answers before just agreeing to a program carte blanch.

I’m going on a decade and a half as a commuting narrow-body fo. I can’t afford to miss weeekends and holidays with my kids so I can’t upgrade. People like me are the reason the upgrade has gone so junior. When the list stops moving (and it will), we’re going to see stagnation for a long time. The retirments settle way down in about