Check out the IRS form 15-T, it discusses withholding methods. Should be relatively easy to go through the same way an employer would when calculating withholding, to see the effect of a pay shift.

I'm not a financial advisor. Witholding is really just a zero interest loan you make into an escrow account with the government, so you're guaranteed to be able to afford your approximately $20k tax bill every April. You could withhold nothing, take all of that money, invest it into SPY and make 15-30% off of it, but just make sure you can afford the bill in its entirety when it comes due. If weird stuff happens with your pay and you haven't withheld enough, you owe some money when your taxes come due. If you overpaid, you get the excess paid back to you at straight value, without any interest.

So our PDT LOA came out and with all the strings attached, and the way I'm reading it, it does very little unless you go to AA as either a direct hire or flow. I'm trying to fully wrap my head around everything, so here's my analysis. Let me know if I missed anything. Also, I get the "if you don't want the money, don't take it, don't complain, how can you complain about getting money," but I'm absolutely going to lawyer my way through all the strings and fully understand what's on the table, and if it's a bad deal, I absolutely won't take the money, but I'll understand why.


Here's the break down:

1 - $30k for CAs or anybody who upgrades, with a 3 year commitment, otherwise you have to give it back, and they get that in writing.

2 - $70k for anyone who goes to AA, either through flow or OTS, on their final paycheck

3 - $25k each year for two years for anyone who flew 864 hours for the applicable year, but it's not paid out until their final paycheck and only if they go to AA. Pilots absent with vacation, mil leave, leaves of absence, and sick leave will be credited up to 164 hours.

4 - At PDT, for new hires, you now have to be a captain to flow

5 - The flow is increased by 3 if non-AA attrition is below 3, and increased by 1 if the non-AA attrition is below 7.

6 - Pay rates increased to 0-76 seat aircraft rates, What this translates to is the pay in unchanged for FOs and set to go up by 50 cents a year through 2023. For CAs it's between $8 and $9 per hour increase, set to increase by 75 cents per year.


So what AA wants/expects is status quo for FOs, then a $30k bonus in exchange for a 3 year contract when we upgrade to CA, no more than 2 months away (plus vacation) for military, leaves of absence, health issues, etc (fair enough), then we deny offers to other airlines and wait to either be hired or flow to AA, and we get $120k.

1 - You can take the $30k, invest it in something safe and make some money, then give it back if/when you get hired somewhere else. Make sure your finance dept takes the $30k out of your earnings on your W2, otherwise you'll get stuck paying the taxes on the $30k. I'm pretty sure this should work the same way if you give the money back year 2 or 3. (I'm not a financial advisor)

2 - Unless you were already going to AA, $70k (or $120k) is not enough to defer the seniority, pay, and quality of life at another legacy or LCC. If you're a new CA or senior FO, you could probably go to an LCC for a few years, get the same or better career earnings, spend a few years with much better quality of life, then still get hired by AA at about the same time, and end up with a similar seniority number (if you actually wanted to leave).

3 - See "2." 864 - 164 = 700 hours, so with vacation, you need to credit an average of 64 hours/month. If you're gone for 2 months, plus the vacation month, you need an average of 78 hrs per month. Definitely disincentivizes mil leave (if you wait for AA)

4 - Should've always been this way IMO

5 - If nobody leaves for outside attrition, then 9 flow that month, meaning a 6.3 year flow for new hires. If attrition is below 7 (so 3-6 per month), which was normal to slightly lower-than-normal pre-pandemic, the flow is increased by 1. What I see happening is a lot of junior CAs leaving, so the flow is effectively unchanged, with maybe an extra 1 every now and then.

6 - The pay raise is nice for CAs.


Overall, I see the bonuses as gimmicks that look good from a distance, but don't make sense when you get close. $30k with a 3-year commitment would cause people to walk away from 135 operators, let alone a regional trying to tie you down from the majors. The rest of the bonuses don't come until you go to AA, so what they're trying to do, is pay us $120k to stay in the regionals, longer.


The real question is how much of a sacrifice (in regards to time) is $120k worth to stay at PDT instead of going to another major? Factoring in seniority during lots of movement, pay at the front end, pay at the back end of your career, plus quality of life... I'm thinking if you're a month from flow and Delta calls, might as well flow. But 5 months out, probably better off leaving. Like I said, I think the money is great for people who were going to go to AA anyway. For everyone else, we get a 10% pay raise as CAs, but everything else is unchanged, and since they gave us something, it might be a while before we have leverage to get anything else.

So honest question: why does everyone always put the "not a financial advisor" disclaimer in their financial posts? Is there actually precedent for someone pursuing legal action against an anonymous forum poster, or do you guys just do it as a courtesy to the reader in case your advice turns out to be incorrect?

two things here:

1) you absolutely cannot just stop all withholding and pay in April in a large chunk. You will get fined and subject to quarterly tax filing.

2) LMFAO @ expecting 15-30% annual returns from SPY to be the norm

SPY calls bruh

Worked great in March 2020...

Who's SPY?

actually you can

you will only be assessed (fairly moderate) penalties and fees if your tax payments were
1) less than owed, AND
2) less than you paid last year

in the situation of a significant windfall bonus, you could reduce withholding for the rest of the calendar year and pay in April.

2) SPY is the gold standard for "the market" and it's your best bet for outpacing inflation with low-risk, steady gains. It's average performance from the 20s to 2019 was around 10% per year (higher lately, but so is inflation). $8,000 invested in 1980 would be almost $800k today. Regardless, the specific value of projected gains wasn't the point

To people asking what SPY is, it's the S&P 500: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._500_companies