This is how I feel about their "problem" with sick leave.

Warning ****Cocktail napkin math in public:

If the 1.95 Billion loss is represented by a One Dollar bill, the 48 Million sick leave abuse amount would be about two and a half cents.

Maybe Gold Finger can double check my rocket surgeon math; the numbers are too large for my Iphone calculator to run.

Also the fact that you aren't held hostage to a promise. I don't trust mgmt much... don't know why the "just say no" crowd thinks it is worth trusting them when we talk pensions.

Money in my own name please, now and in the future.

Herk....im not a pension redux advocate. Its a question of recognizing the phantom value of what is now.

Don't want delta to backstop the pbgc benefit its ok with me.... but there better be some serious cash in hand increases instead.

I'm not clear on the $48 million figure. Is that the amount said to attributable to "abuse," or is that actual value of all sick leave used?

Either way, ALPA needs to quantify some numbers and spin them 180 degrees. As in, what is the value of unused sick leave that we hand over to Delta each year? By my math the total sick leave liability (or call it a benefit, your choice) is worth something north of a half billion dollars per year. Here's how I got there with some vague generalities and ballpark assumptions. Let's just say the upper half of the seniority list is alotted 270 hours and the lower half gets 240. For ease I need to pick a median hourly rate. So I chose $190 as it is roughly the transition point from big airplane F/O to little airplane captain. If my methodology dug deeper into assigning captain rates exactly where they belong, I'd guess the final sum would be bigger. This is a conservative estimate: 6000 x 240 = 1.44M hours; 6000 x 270 = 1.62M hours, added together 3.06M hours. Multiplied by $190 = $581,400,000 in sick leave value. That's probably off by a significant factor, but I'm thinking more, not less. So let's say $500M for conservative argument's sake. Subtract $48 million. Let's just call that a drop in the bucket.

I think Delta pilots are a wonderful "deal," conserving nearly half a billion dollars in sick leave costs each year. What's the problem?

Here's why oil hedging is a gamble and not insurance. Today oil hit 35.65 WTI and 37.97 Brent. In order for a hedge position to be positive you would have had to call oil at 35 back in June or December of last year.

Had you been allowed to make that bet as a corporate commodities manager, you would have been way out on a limb. Your job would have probably been dependent on that position.

As a corporate commodities portfolio manager, you are now looking at 35 dollar oil knowing you have to make a call on upside but what is your call number? Oil has decayed all year, pundants have said 50 would hold then 45, then... now 35.

What is your only real safe play? A moderate laddered hedge higher to protect the energy bill. Which will most certainly lose money even if oil bottoms and stays stagnant. If you don't hedge for a higher price you will lose your job if oil rises and you are unprotected.

The moderate the impact play is always a loser but an argument can be made for protection. Great intentions that are guaranteed to lose some money but hopefully not a lot of money. Open market oil leaves you exposed but if the competition is also exposed, you have matched their cost.

If you bet on the continual fall in oil, how low? And when will it reverse?

Sound like gambling yet?

Come on........... Seven!

CRAPS!

Yes 7ER, but those buybacks have really helped boost the value of all your awarded stock options that you can cash in at any time.....

By no means am I comparing our situation with the Civil War, but Delta is run by carpet baggers. Only consolation is that they'll be gone before the next downturn.

Please elaborate.

Elaborate?

The pbgc is structurally insolvent. It is not a matter of 'if' they will be forced to cut/terminate benefit payments...... it is simply a matter of when.

Alpa behaves as if this reality doesn't even exist.

Anyone calculating the pbgc payments as a reliable component of their retirement security is being far more foolish than those who did so with the phoney baloney pension.