Thanks

i guess it’s weird to get a HSA and not use it for medical purposes.

and instead think about it as a way to get $50000 from spirit tax free if the pilot started at age 40.

Yeah, even if you are a single guy at 40 and never contribute a dime, other than the $1000 that Spirit contributes, at a modest interest rate of 4% compounded over 25 years will give you a balance of nearly 51k, with all of the growth tax free and no tax on the withdraw. If you max it out, you are looking at north of 150k, while lowering your taxable income.

Our max out of pocket on the HSA is only 5k for an individual. There's no excuse for someone making 6 figures to not have that kind of money liquid.

Based on many airlines having health care options for retired pilots and/or LTD pilots, im willing to wager we will have the same when it comes to retirement for us and a few contracts to develop it. I honestly expect this on the next contract. Its pretty much industry standard. Because I have no interest in leaving here, im happy with the HRA Diamond and feel there is a good chance ill take my HRA balance into retirement to use on healthcare needs.

i was under the impression that with the diamond HRA when you leave spirit either Retirement or going to another airline. You don’t take that with you.

You can have 75,000 in the Diamond HRA. (25 years x 3000 year) when you retire and all of it goes back to spirit. You get nothing


whereas the HSA is 2000 free money from spirit every year and a 5300 FSA that you don’t have to use or lose

it’s not spirits call to allow pilots to change the HRA rules to allow us to take the HRA balance with us when we retire because the IRS makes the rules for HRAs. We’d have to get congress to change the rules.

That is my understanding of it as well. The HRA is a use it or lose it deal, but the company puts more into it each year. The HSA you own it.

Do you know for a fact that the current HRA balance (what the company owns) can’t be rolled over to an employer funded Retirement Reimbursement Account? Im not a benefits specialist but I know there is an HRA and a Retiree HRA. The company should be able to fund the Retiree HRA with a lump sum at time of retirement.

Currently the full balance of HRA belongs to the company. Should you leave the company, retire, or change your current HRA health plan for another health plan, you lose the full balance of the HRA. If you want that changed get in touch with your rep and negotiating committee.


The current CBA also doesn’t allow retirees to purchase health plans offered by the company unlike contracts at other airlines.

Ugh, yes. We all know that. We are not discussing what we have but what can be obtained through negotiations, and what is possible with Retirement HRA. We have many CBA cycles yet before we start seeing true retirements at Spirit. No reason to not start to improve how our insurance is handled in regards to LTD and retirees as we begin work on the next contract.

And yes, my feels were made on the survey we took and will continue to be made on future surveys.

Understood. I think the one thing that catches a lot of people out is losing the HRA money by simply just changing your health plan. I think there’s a lot of folks that don’t know that.

R&I can certainly stand some real improvement. Especially to stay competitive.

Agree on both.

Would love to see more coming from the R&I committee as a whole. No reason to not have a little part of the biweekly email we get...Retirement and Insurance is only a HUGE part of our contract