No it's not.
fbh

Almost every FO at DAL will be able to hit the cash over cap limit within their first 5 years on property under their new contract.

Example: 3rd year 737 FO at DAL will hit the cash over cap threshold at min guarantee with a 17% 401k contributions from both him and the company. The % the pilots need to contribute decreases significantly when line holding, soft pay, profit sharing are factored in along with pay increases from YOS and bidding larger aircraft or upgrading.

please explain.

The earnings limit for 2023 is $330,000. 9% of that is $29,700. Total IRS contribution limit is $66,000. That leaves $36,300 available for the pilot to contribute. So, show how you will lose some of your 9% DC contribution.

Let’s say you are on track to make exactly 250,000, which is actually much much more than many of our FX pilots actually make.

You have set up your contributions so that on you’ve already contributed $42,500 of your own money. You’re expecting the company to contribute their 9% of your last check and then your contribution will bring it up to the $66,000 limit.

seems tricky but doable.

Except it’s not. Because the company will take the contribution from your check first before they put in their 9%.

if we had cash over cap, you wouldn’t lose any money in that scenario.

nor would you lose money if you hit that 43.5k number and went beyond it earlier in the year.

not having cash over cap is an issue for everyone, not just the guys who make over 330k, and not having cash over cap would have burned us all pretty hard with TA1.0

So, if it is much much more than many of our pilots make, that means that it will mean nothing for many many of our pilots. It is simply a means to cover for your screwup. You can certainly make a max 401 contribution each year without giving away DC contributions, it just takes a little effort on your part.

The Union puts out an instruction every year on how to avoid that pitfall. How much to contribute to after tax contributions and when to bump it up.

To the both of you, unless you know exactly what your last few paychecks are going to be, that’s impossible, especially since December income can go up significantly at the last minute with grid penalty events and disruptions. And since we don’t have a real-time pay register that shows you what things are looking like they’re going to be, it’s even harder.


Also, fact that they don’t care about removing such a pitfall is part of the problem with this MEC/NC.

You know on the first day of the December bid month what your pay for that month will be. All of those other items you mentioned are paid on the 15th of the next month. Try again.

If you actually read what the union puts out, you will understand how to avoid that pitfall....I'm not going to argue it....If you want to avoid the pitfall read what the R & I committee puts out about the problem you describe. For anyone else, reading this....go look at the communication put out by the Union and it will tell you exactly how to mitigate this. It's not difficult.