Then why are you constantly ranting about us “failing” and “throwing senior pilots under the bus”, and “abandoning the 4th pillar”, and…???

 

Might not be the place for it but now that the contract is in place how are the qol improvements stacking up. Asking for a friend who might go to ua who says they will copy the delta contract

 

Unfortunately a lot of the good QoL stuff doesn’t get implemented until the end of August.

 

Thought it was AA that said they would copy pay rates and PS, it with vague things about QOL. And a video from the CEO, not actually anything out of the union camp. Worked well for them last time negotiating in public.
I have not heard that UAL is saying they are going to copy ours.

 

Not true. MOU 23-1 says "as soon as possible." During negotiations, the company represented many of the items that do not require IT changes to be a day-one change. Senior management's statements sound eager to implement the agreement, as agreed.

Please file FCR's if you do not observe manual processes, like assigning and boarding, not being complied with per our agreement.

 

100% true. Most of the soft pay gains that will either make QoL better or enrichen us do not go into effect until after another red hot summer.

 

I disagree with that description. Age 65 occurred in mid December 2007. The pension was first "soft" frozen in December 2004. IIRC the last lump sums were paid out in September 2005. If you use either of those dates (which were both before the actual termination and the PBGC assuming authority over the pension), then the absolute youngest a deadzoner could have been in December 2004 would have been 57. Anybody over 50 was age eligible to retire at the time. The pilots you describe were very unlucky with timing, chose poorly by not taking the lump sum and were SOL with the timing of the transition to age 65.

I think a deadzoner was a pilot who was unable to retire, because they had not reached the minimum age required of 50, and take what they had accrued, minus penalties for going early, for the lump sum before the music stopped on that in 2005. They had no choice. A 49 year old in 2005 would have been 51 in 2007 when the age 65 rule went into effect. That pilot would have retired at age 65 in 2021. That pilots accrual in the DC plan would have been anemic from 2007 until C2012. As you look at pilots who were younger than that example in 2005, the younger you go, the muddier the waters get in reconciling the "too young to retire with the DB and not enough years remaining in the DC to make up the difference". Someone retiring this year would have been 47 when the music stopped for being able to retire with the soft frozen DB and take a lump sum, but since they weren't 50, they weren't eligible. That same 47 year old got some note and claim money, which wasn't much, a small DC contribution until C2012 and then they have been getting a decent DC contribution since. If they have been all in themselves on maxing contributions, they won't be greeting people entering the local Walmart or in the line at the local soup kitchen, but they also won't have what a Delta pilot who retired at 60 in mid 2004 had. Over the next few years, I think that will change and we will reach a point where a pilot retiring now will have more than the old timers did. Lots of variables there since the DB was a guarantee till death unencumbered by the market fluctuations.

Just my opinion, but there are still definitely some pilots on property who are in that deadzone. Even the ones who haven't made a bunch of ****ty financial/life decisions. They still haven't accrued enough DC to equal what the old DB would have given them. Every year that passes, they are becoming extinct. In another 5 years, I'm not sure any will exist. JMO

 

This is by far the best description I’ve ever read on what the DZ term means and why. Thank you.

 

Min Day Pay, Sit Pay, Vacation Pay, Training pay, Short Call pay, ADG carve out Pay, Increase to Unverified sick lookback, 18 hour long call, staffing formula and reserve required improvements. All in place by this summer.

Don’t let facts get in the way of a good narrative. MOU23-01 is available for review at the end of the contract.

 

True to those. Reroute not until 8/1 is too bad. FDP 10+ not until 9/1. Those two are significant, not really beneficial until next summer.