The IRS limit is a CONTRIBUTION limit. and the stock was contributed when it was about $4/share. What happens after it goes in is irrelevant for IRS purposes.

Ok, now THAT makes sense.

Seems like a home run. I bet you guys have set the model for this stuff working (versus the US Airways debacle) in the future.

Do you think UAL/CAL will follow your lead?

It was a home run.
But its the bottom of the ninth and we were down 8-1.
Now we're down 8-2.

Better than nothing though. The merger stock has grown nicely inside the 401K. No taxes is nice.

The Delta / Northwest merger was a text book merger success story. It will be referenced by business schools and airline management for many years from now. The exact opposite of the Usair / America west merger train wreck.

Many believe Anderson was the right man for this massive airline merger. The only real airline CEO in the game today. I would say 99% of the DAL employees are on board with the merger results.

The simple reason this merger worked so well was our MEC and our flight ops leadership. Getting the pilots on board, dealt with and operationally integrated forced the other departments to quickly follow suit. If the pilots were not on board, we would not be cheering for RA but jeering him.

The question, of course, is with the announcement of today's merger talks with UAL, is whether this lesson has been learned. You guys pulled it off, but are the folks at USAir and UAL up to it?

Based on LCC's current failure in integrating the UsAir guys and their AW counterparts, I wouldn't think they're up to the task. But you know what they say the definition of insanity is.

I agree and disagree... RA is the kind of CEO that can work with the unions and bring them into the process.

He's a lawyer, but he understands the overall workings of the process better than any of the other beancounter CEOs.

The MEC did a great job of coordinating with the company, and the management did the same thing with the union. It was definitely an optimum situation. I fly with guys that think we should have gone for the moon on pay on LOA19, but the union really seemed to go for what as feasable with it.

Overall.... well done. It's nice seeing over 6 figures in my fidelity account after barely 3 years with the company...

The UsAir/AWA merger is still not done... Now throw UAL into it... GoodLuck

I'm not so "skeptical" about your identity, as you're obviously an outsider fishing... but it's not a question of whether the UsAirways/United guys will pull it off. The USAPA guys are unable to go beyond their raw hatred of erveryone lese to even begin to do anything anything rational or constructive, but the fact is that the precedent has been set. They will "pull this off" with no effort because it is now the price of accomplishing a merger. More simply stated, they will get it because we got it, and they will want it.

If anything, they will get more, because the price to be paid for this will need to be high enough to buy peace for the future merger AND the preceding (unfinished) merger between UsAirways and America West. There will be such chaos trying to merge seniority lists with a third airline, and so little desire to throw in adequate wages, or to let wages snap-back, that a lot of funny money (in paper form) will need to be thrown at the front end of this thing to have any effect at all. It's going to take an unusual amount to buy any acceptable degree of "peace" in this case, so you should look at what was established in the DAL/NWA deal as a sort of low starting point, and compensate upwards, because the distance between status quo and the finish line is so much greater at LCC/UAL than it was for DAL/NWA.