there’s 18% DOS and more. There’s increased pay for vacation, training, per diem, retirement, reserve improvements, LCP work, and many other improvements for “your demographic.”

 

more important to be angry than transparent, I guess

 

Ok, lets say we increase the DC to 20%, but all that really does is let the junior folks fill their IRS limits faster. To everyone else, it's a simple pay raise, and not an efficient use of retirement dollars, since it gets taxed at the highest marginal rate.

So a simple increase in the DC does nothing for those on the top end because it comes as simple, taxed cash anyway. Why not simply ask for more money in rates? If that had happened, would you still be mad?

 

Right now company contributions are capped below IRS limits. If the company were to contribute 20% no additional pre-tax "pay" would be required in the form of individual contributions to fill the IRS limit. It would be a cleaner system with no excess until the income limit was exceeded.

 

I have no way of knowing if that was done or not. But since they did get an increase to the DC albeit delayed for some strange reason, I will assume that they didn't deem the top end worthy of it. Interesting that you mention the tax aspect. It appears there was nothing they could do anyway to tax shelter any monies, so they just chose to delay it anyway.

So why don't you tell me... why was the DC increase not immediate? It sure as hell was abandoned as a retroactive feature... why?

 

Without diving into the details I would say it has similarly delayed implementation compared with the past several contracts.

 

Im about 4-5 pages behind so I apologize if this has been mentioned WRT this post, but regarding PS…. The profit sharing pool is a finite amount based on earnings for pilots correct? So if we all get this extra pay this year as back pay, we will all be getting more money, but there is no more money, it’s a fixed pot. Delta puts in the money into a pot, and then we all get our “taste” in the immortal words of Tony Soprano, so in your example, because we all had higher earnings, by virtue of the “one time payment/signing bonus” we will still get the same amount we otherwise would have, instead of 10% under the old pay scale, but because we all got plussed up, so it’ll be 8.9-9.1% in PS.

In other words, the pot of money is the same size for pilots, since that equation didn’t change, assuming Deltas earnings calculation stays the same, so we end up with the same money, it’ll just be a lower percentage of a higher income.

Correct me if im wrong…what am I saying? This is APC, I’ll be corrected if im wrong for sure!🤣. Is my understanding of our profit sharing plan completely in the weeds or amirite?

 

I get what you are saying, and yes, since we will all be earning more then the actual PS % payout will be lower because the compensation pool will be larger. I mean the company's profit is also going to be ~$800 million lower since it's paying that much out in additional wages this year. My guess is in the end once all the math scenarios are run, we will still be netting less money than if we had 16% DC paid on our one time payment, but having that payment count towards the 2024 payout will greatly close the gap. If we have a killer year it has a chance of exceeding it.

Now of course the best situation would be to get 16% DC on the one time payment AND have it count for PS, but I have no idea if that option was ever in the cards.

 

The profit sharing pool is a fixed amount based on PTIX. Our allocation floats based upon our collective percentage of the total eligible wage pool. If all the pilots wages go up, the total wage pool goes up, but the other non-con portion (flight attendants, mechanics, etc) remains the same (unless they get a raise too). So assuming our raise out shines the non-cons’ raise for 2023, yes the one time payout makes a difference.

 

No idea. I'm sitting watching the paint dry, and just trying to figure out if it's a money thing or a some other issue. If they re-wired the numbers to include DC, but it was the same overall amount and made it a 17% raise with 17% DC on 1/1/23 and made the same retro with a DC component, if that solves your issue. If the answer is no, ok, we're getting somewhere, but if the answer is yes, then I have no idea.