Bill80

They've done some great things with their retirement. Especially if you add in profit sharing. A lot of money is going into their pilot retirement accounts that will adjust with inflation. We could of had 16.5% CoC B plan for new hires in 2015, but chose against it. Here we are, with only a 1% increase to our B plan since then, and letting the pension continue to drag down negotiations.

willflyforfud

Just so I understand... if you were an FO and made 300k.. and the company matched 18% with cash over cap.. you would have 54k put in retirement accts... if you then added your own 23k'ish.. you would have a combined 77k retirement input... so your total monthly savings would be 6.4k per month. Compound that for 25yrs at 8% and you will have 5.629MM.

5.629MM will generate approx 225K in retirement income per yr.

Our 2015 contract pension of 130k + my 401k and B fund currently will generate approximately
230k/yr in retirement income.

Of course you may average more than 300k per year over your career and bank more... but you will have to fly. Every year you make less than 300k at the beginning, your compounding window decreases and you may have less. If you retire w/ 5.6 MM and the mkt drops 20%... you will have 4.48MM and a new income of 179k/yr. I will just not touch my 401k and let it recover and live on the pension.

The point is... spitting out arbitrary 18, 20, 25% w/ cash over cap numbers means nothing until you do a realistic run of your career earnings and work it backwards.

Stan446

Your friends at other airlines couldn't comprehend a pension with an increase? Unless you work for the airline with their contract, no one has a clue how a contract affect a specific pilot group other than the pay rates published.

NotMrNiceGuy

I don’t retire for 25 years. That means if I chose the pension, it would never be increased and I would be capped at 9%. So it’s not an option. Imagine getting a pension for $130K in 1999 and it never be increased. So now you see the problem.

What they couldn’t imagine is getting an awesome retirement plan for the senior people, and then the younger crowd paying for it through a crappy retirement plan that’s not even close to the same value. Make sense?

willflyforfud

not really... because you could have taken the pension at 169k... and bargained over your career to increase the B fund and get cash over cap.

the only screwed people would be those hired who didn't get an option... and that's why I voted no.

Bill80

Unhired pilots would have an option... don't go to FedEx.

The significant A plan increase doesn't happen without ending it for new hires. People will have to accept that tradeoff if that's what they want.

willflyforfud

I agree... I think it's a huge mistake... BUT,

​​​​​​maybe the company is intentionally F*ing up this contract to correct an imbalance, and will decide 4yrs from now they made a mistake, can't hire and then will throw money at the problem?? I speculate... but some accountant on hacks did that math.

Bill80

The company doesn't want the liability of the pension on their books. That's why they'll only agree to increase it by ending it eventually.

I don't think many new hires would really care about having the pension or not. They'd likely prefer what they hear about at the pax airlines.

Jamo

I love it when some in our group try to make it like they fell on a sword for us by not splitting retirement in 2015. The reality is, if you had split us back then, your group would have got zero gains this time around or in any future contract. The company would have leveraged those hired with no A plan (would now be the majority) against those with. If the A plan can be bargained up, can it be bargained down? You want to see ugly, pit two pilot groups against each other for the same pie.

Merle Haggard

This is NOT a viable long-term option as proven by AA's B-Scale long ago. Pilots will come anyway and live to resent those who have options that they do not. It would ultimately screw all of us.