How does Sick buy back cost the company?

Seems like 68.4M gain by paying 1/2, not to mention the productivity gains of encouraging people to keep sick bank untouched for a few years.

Sick Leave Buy-back ($68.4M)

I suppose it depends. If the pilot was going to fully use their sick bank, and now they won't, it's a positive for the company. If they weren't going to use it all, then it costs the company half. I don't think this is good for pilots, however, those who have a full sick bank and didn't think they'd need to use it will disagree.

If you retire tomorrow how much value does your sick bank have. Answer Zero. If you play the game and retire under the TA provisions both the company and the union agree it will cost 68 million.

What it shows is that the retiring pilots now are retiring with plenty of hours in their sick bank. So we have been giving by FedEx estimate double the $68 million back for free!

exactly, just compare it to a monthly vacation buy back. You get paid for the vacation plus the penalty and you earn your RLG/BLG on top of that. Normally sick/vacation are simply forms of crediting RLG/BLG hours and the pilot does not double (or more) earn those hours. The sick leave buy back under the current CBA is just being expanded to "encourage" people to earn all of their credit hours and not credit sick back hours, so the Company pays the pilot all of his RLG/BLG and potentially pays out up to 110K additional. The pilot who uses or drains the DSA is just using those hours as paid time off, just like vacation.

A pilot who is fortunate to not have any major ailments and wants to work "normally" until they retire can benefit from that good fortune. I know a number of pilots who walked with 686 and they deposited hours almost every year of unused regular sick time but have to walk leaving the bank on the table unless they happen to be sick and drain the account. This process does not entice flying sick anymore than the current RSA/DSA process.

Well, if you do call in sick during your last two years, the sick pay does not count toward your "over $520K". So, it does encourage flying while you're sick

And, does the $68,000,000 include the money saved by the company, by having guys flying their arses off, the last two years, trying to make the "$740K" required to even get to the point that they buy 1/2 of your sick bank. That's a lot of extra flying.

By the way...$68million equates to 618+/- guys leaving with a full sick bank AND making over $740K, their last 2 years.

That number falls in line with how many we have retiring in the next 6 years. Probably how it was costed out in a worse case scenario.