KODI3

I have about a yr to go for mil retirement and trying to gather as much info fm various companies. I have friends/fmr colleagues flying for all the majors, both pax and cargo. Over the yrs I have heard their reasons for focus on certain companies. Some of them chased the highest base pay. History has shown that has not been the best deciding factor because some ended up as car salesmen and carpenters in between furlough/rehire. That is why I am curious about company benefits to factor into the equation.

Looking for objective facts for comparison/targeting of these two companies as far as long term benefits in addition to base salaries. Some info on APC, but is it current/accurate?

Look forward to input fm the respective company pilots.


-Number of paid vacation/sick days annually

-401K min/max annual contribution limits and how much matched by company

-Stock options

-Relocation allowance

-Education benefits for employee & family

-Travel benefits IE: Passes on commercial flts for employee & family or possible "Space A" seats on company acft

-Upgrade to CAPT timeline

-Life/License (FAA) insurance

-Medical insurance for employee & family (Is there requirement to participate?)

-Any other pertinent benefits not listed

scambo1

This is just my opinion so take it for what its worth. As a mil retiree, you have medical care covered and it is probably better and definitely cheaper than either company. To me though the airline job is different than I thought it would be when I separated, I think you have that figured out too, but I say it because I actually DIS-counted the cargo companies when I got off active duty...In retrospect, this was due to ignorance.

Ask yourself 2 questions, they are the only important ones IMO:

1. Where do you want to live? Try to get with an airline that has a base that is driving distance from there.

2. What sort of flying do you want to do? International or only domestic? SWA may, with the airtran acquisition fly international lite, but its unlikely they will fly to Frankfurt or Shanghai. If you are interested in international flying - which IMO is infinitely a better job than domestic, focus only on airlines that do that flying, including cargo.

All of the other benefits are just the next contract or bankruptcy away from being different/worse.

TheNid

I retired from AF about 3yrs ago. It might sound cliched, but apply to all, interview everywhere and if you're lucky/blessed take the best fit for you. It might not be DAL or SWA. Get out of the mind set of only one company will work for you. You have to lose the military loyalty thing to a degree. Make the interviewer know you want to work for his company over all others...be ready to change your mind if a better offer comes up.

I applied at several majors (not SWA). Got interviewed and hired by one I didn't have any internal recs, one I thought a long shot at best.

As far as who's on top now...it doesn't matter, it will surely change. Contracts, equipment, networks, payrates and everything can change. SWA and DAL are only similar in that they carry passengers. One is domestic and one flies to world-wide. But I'd take the job with whoever offered it and be thankful.

Happily executing the flows in the right seat of the Maddog.

LeineLodge

KODI,

I'll do my best to answer what I can. The info on the APC pages is usually pretty accurate, but often doesn't paint the complete picture.

Don't know much about SWA. At Delta:

- Paid sick leave is done in hours based on Years of Service. First year is (I believe) 75 hours/year, and goes up from there to 240 hours/year at 12 years of service. The caveat is you are only paid at 100% for the first 300 hours in a rolling 3 year period. For example, I use all 240 hours this year at 100% and all 240 hours next year. Only the first 60 hours next year are paid at 100%, then the remaining 180 hours are paid at 70 or 75% (can't remember because I've never come close to it.) You still get the hours paid out, but at a reduced rate. Generally, if you don't use more than 100 hours/year (less is better in case of a future unknown) then you will be paid at 100% for your sick time.

Sick time is supplemented with short term and long term disability depending on how long you are out for. Further, long term disability is supplemented by pilot funded DPMA (Delta Pilots Mutual Aid). The purpose of this is to fill the gap between long term disability (50% of your salary) and what you would have made if you weren't out of work. If you are a member of DPMA (somewhere north of 98% of Delta pilots are) you are entitled to up to 2 years of benefits, but may only use a maximum of 1 year per event. To get the 2nd year, you have to return to work for at least 1 day, and/or have a separate event.

-401k. By the time you get out of the military Delta pilots will be getting 14% of their salary into their Defined Contribution (DC) plan. The company puts this in whether you contribute anything to your 401k or not. It is a contribution, not a match. Your contributions are limited by IRS regulations - $16,500 if under 50 and I think you can do an extra $5000 if you're over 50. Not an expert on this stuff, as I'm not an old guy (yet) so someone else will chime in with better info. Total contributions for the year (your contribution + the company contribution) are capped at $49,000/year. Not too many guys are hitting that mark in a normal year. This is one thing that a lot of guys want to see increased.

-No stock options. There have been occasional equity distributions to the pilot group as a result of bankruptcy, merger, pension termination, etc, but we don't regularly have stock options. We do get profit sharing that is calculated based on if/how much the company makes. We just received profit sharing checks a few weeks ago for 2010 that were approximately equal to 6.5% of the pilot's 2010 W2.

-Relocation allowance - This only comes into play if you are involuntarily displaced out of your position. For example, you are a Detroit 767ER First Officer and things start moving backwards. The company will publish a surplus bid and suddenly you are not senior enough to hold your current position. You can then preference where you would like to go instead, and if that is to a different base (say Salt Lake City A-320 First Officer) the company will pay to relocate you. There are some restrictions, but this is basically the only way the company will pay for your move.

-Education benefits - You and your family will be able to apply for various Delta scholarships, but there is no education allowance to my knowledge. Someone with more info on this could help out here.

-Pass Travel - Pretty decent pass travel benefits on Delta and Delta Connection carriers. All travel is standby and you pay $50/year to activate your travel account. Boarding for available seats is in seniority order, with a few exceptions. We are able to purchase tickets on Delta at a reduced rate if you want to have a confirmed seat. Eligible travelers are: you, spouse, parents, and dependents.

You get 8 buddy passes/year to give out if you wish, but they're rarely worth it. The buddy still has to pay a little bit for them, and they have the worst boarding priority (ie behind all the other eligible travelers.) I generally shy away from handing these out, as you will inevitably end up playing travel agent when your friend gets stranded.

Pilots can list the jumpseat and for the most part have a confirmed seat on mainline Delta aircraft, subject to booking timeframe restrictions. This is especially helpful if you will be commuting.

-Upgrade time - Hopefully sooner than later Your guess is as good as mine. We have over 12,000 pilots and roughly half are captains. With relatively minimal retirements over the next 5 years, there will not be much movement. After around 2017 and beyond, we hit a huge wave of mandatory age 65 retirements that continues for over a decade. A large majority of the list will leave during that timeframe. If you are young enough (under 40, which is sounds like you're probably not) then you will have a good last 15 to 20 years here. Otherwise you will probably top out at widebody copilot or junior narrowbody captain.

A lot of things can/will change this. How many guys actually make it to 65? Can we hold the line or recapture RJ flying? International codeshare/Joint Venture agreements and their resultant allocation of flying? New aircraft orders? Economy? Oil? ????????

The short answer is you need to be happy and comfortable as a First Officer, because you're probably going to be one for a LONG time. Don't take this job because you like the Captain payrates. Talk to your buddies about what their W2 looks like and how many nights away from home they spend a month. Those are the biggest factors that reflect how good the rest of our contract items are structured.

- Life insurance - Delta provides approximately $1.5 million in life insurance for each pilot. You can select less if you don't need all of it, as you will pay imputed taxes on the portion of this that is over the IRS limit and thus considered income. Again, I don't know the exact limit, but it's not terribly expensive.

Loss of License - You can buy this through ALPA, and is independent of Delta. I have looked at it several times over the years and keep coming to the conclusion that it's not worth it. To each, his own.

- Medical Plan - There are plenty of options to pick a medical plan that works for your family. Participation is NOT mandatory. I'm on my wife's plan, as her employer offers a better one. I assume you're asking because you will have retiree medical from the military. There are plenty of mil guys on here that can give you much better gouge on that than I can.

I'm all typed out. I'm sure others will pipe in with some things I left out. Both companies are great choices, but ultimately one will probably be a better fit for you. None of this matters until you have a job offer with each anyways, so start networking with your buddies NOW that way you can have something lined up before you get out. Again, the mil guys can tell you better how to approach the timeline, but you probably want to have an application in with Delta ASAP, in case they open the hiring window. If you get behind the hiring curve, there will be that many more resumes flowing in that you will be competing with.

Thanks for your service, and hopefully we'll see you in a year!

forgot to bid

As an important fringe benefit, Delta has DC9s, MD88s and MD90s. Soon SWA will have 717s.

So in that sense, SWA is catching up quickly with Delta in that all important benefit of having a Man's Plane instead of a pudgy football that resembled the back end of a cat as it taxis out in front of you.

forgot to bid

But give SWA some credit, they do have some fun paint jobs.



Still a butt.

Back to your originally scheduled and much more important conversation on benefits. I have nothing of value to add.

80ktsClamp

hahahaha! you kill me ftb...

cheyenne

Great post LeineLodge. Very informative, even for a Delta guy like myself. Thanks.

buzzpat

I'm a mil retiree whose been flying commercially for a legacy since 2001 (albeit with a nasty furlough thingy in between). While I applaud your strategic vision I have to offer a little bit of a warning shot across your bow. Take it for what its worth and don't let it deter you as to where you want to go.

Flying commercially isn't what you are used to. In some ways, its a QOL improvement, in others, its a definite downgrade. Don't expect what is today's norm at any company to be tomorrow's norm. In the military, we all had a unified purpose and goal. In the commercial flying industry, the goal is the company and its profits. You are but an instrument to either achieve those profits or hinder them. Its all about the pilot contract. What one company might offer today, another might trump tomorrow. What one union might promise today, might most likely disappear tomorrow.

As an earlier poster said, instead of shooting for a particular company, shoot for the place you and your family want to live (commuting absolutely sucks) and what you think you could possibly bear in terms of pay and benefits in the future. If you want to fly domestically, there are companies that cater to that. If you want to fly internationally, there are other companies that will accommodate that. If you want to fly pax vs cargo, obviously there are companies that can meet those goals.

Bottom line: from one mil retiree to another, don't become target-fixated. Throw the net. Today's American Idol is tomorrow's also ran.

Congrats on your retirement and thank you for your service. I know from where you come.

satchip

I retired in 08 and have been with Delta since terminal leave. Now that my bonafides are out of the way, let me give you some opinion. Where you live is absolutely key. Unless you hate your family and have restless feet living in base is a must for air line pilot QOL. If your family is flexible and your kids are either grown or little, spread the net wide and take what comes. Since only SWA, Delta, and FedEx seem to be hiring in the immediate future, your choices are limited. Apply to all three plus everyone else and take the job. Then move to base.

If you are wedded to a particular location that is not close to a base that is junior enough for you to hold in a short time, seriously consider another occupation. I like my job and I like the Big Widget and all the fine folks I work with but If I could find a job that made as much and let me sleep in my own bed with family every night, I'd take it.

Buzz, I don't know how you do it, between flying for Delta and your other commitments. Your wife must be a saint and your children must be perfect. Or your feet really stink and they like you gone so they can fumigate!