No on your 401k DC. That’s a huge shortfall. Delta not only pays the DC while on LTD it pays the DC based on your normal salary. Not the reduced LTD income.

Spirit Benefits Comparison
 

And after you get cobra ask me how I know. Though to be fair I was on LTD with the last contract this must be a change. I believe when I was out it was 9 months then I paid cobra.


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Hi all, looking forward to joining the team in July. I'm curious about the health insurance benefits. An earlier commenter mentioned about them for a single guy, but how does it look for a guy with a family? Thanks for the help.

HRA diamond plan is a PPO for families about $165 a check. Company puts in $3K to use towards deductable. You can cover the rest of the deductible with a pre tax flex spending account. It's the most cost effective plan we have and really no matter how you slice it (using little or lot of medical) it is the best deal. We use United Healthcare.

Also whatever you don’t use gets rolled over to the next year.

So for example for a family of 4 you get $3000 per year into your HRA account, your family deductible is $4500 so if you spend it all that first year, you need to come up with $1500.

Say you only spend $1000 that year, $2000 gets rolled to the next year and next year you start with $5000 in your HRA to cover the $4500 deductible for the year.

Awesome, thanks for the info!

The flex spending account is use it or lose it. But if you need to use it there are online shops you can buy medical supplies...I.E. Buy some nice equipment and resell on ebay

Which firm manages the retirement accounts, eg. fidelity, vanguard, etc?

Charles Schwab


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I'd argue it's ABOVE industry standard - even industry leading. Here's how I see it after looking at the chart on LTD SWAPA put out in Nov. 2019 as part of their info packet to let their guys see how they stacked up going into negotiations against American, United, Delta, Southwest, Alaska, FedEx, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Spirit, and UPS:

I know many of the pilots reading this don't work for Spirit, so I'll try to add info that might seem redundant to Spirit pilots.

At Spirit, we can get up to $15k/month in LTD pay-out (@ 60% of Pre Disability Earnings [PDE] - so, if you make $300k/year, you make $25k/month, 60% of that is $15k). JetBlue, as far as I can tell, is the only other airline that can get up to $15k/month. Every other airline is lower in both PDE % and LTD monthly cap (except Delta, who has no LTD monthly cap, but a 50% PDE limit, so you'd have to make $360k at Delta vs $300k Spirit to get $15k/month).

The biggest reason Spirit's plan is superior (IMO) is because Spirit only pays for the first $5k or benefits, and the pilots pay for the buy-up out of their own pocket with after-tax $ (yep, you read that right!). It costs about $80/month to pay for the full $10k buy-up, and you can only buy up to the amount you're eligible for, so if you make less than $100k (first year FO), you can't buy-up, and a pilot who makes $150k/year can only buy-up to $7,500, which would cost about $24/month.

The key is, insurance paid for out-of-pocket with after-tax $'s is tax free. Company paid for insurance is NOT. So, when you go out on LTD, you want as much of the $ to be tax free as possible. You already took a unexpected pay-cut, so you're going to want every $ you can to be tax-free.

Spirit will pay $10k tax free, $5k taxed monthly.
JetBlue will pay $1.5k tax free, $13.5k taxed
United will pay $8k, all taxed

I'd rather pay $80/month for $15k, $10k tax free when I REALLY need it.

I'd rather have Harvey Watt too, though.

Bingo.

Have heard pilots complain the short term disability is after tax. It's much better to get taxed on $30 per month so the $2000 per week is tax free.....

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zero company paid retirement contribution on LTD. Go out at a young age and that $15k/mo (if even eligible) doesn’t change with inflation but that’s with anyone. The main issue is your huge loss in retirement. You now have to take your 60% earnings and invest as best you can on you on your own.

Make more money doing something on the side to compensate then right? Can’t! Your 60% LTD benefit that you get zero retirement contribution on is also cut for any outside earnings so your side gig you would be working for free unless you’re hiding the money in cash. I believe that counts for your spouse too if she/he goes out and gets a job they didn’t have prior to your disability.

Also don’t forget that you only get company healthcare for five years so now you have to take your 60% earnings with no retirement and no ability to make extra money and buy insurance 100% out of pocket and because you’re on LTD it’s not crazy to think you may need more care than a normal person.

industry leading? No

100x better than the last contract? Yes

the poor guys that went out under the last contract and we didn’t bring them with us in this contract I really feel for them.

I have to admit it sounds like a fairly good deal, given its relatively low cost. I will admit, I know next to nothing in terms of LTD as the option at my last outfit wasn't worth the cost, however this plan sounds intriguing. Can it be better, I am sure it can, but would anyone not sign up for this program? It seems like a no brainer.

While I’d love for LTD to be 100% with retirement and insurance paid up for life, I have to balance that with knowing that if I’d go out I’d be making a multiple or two of the national average income to not work. If I have to contribute to retirement and insurance out of that then them’s the breaks. I could be flipping burgers for a living or dependent on the government sole.

Ill take anything better if offered, but won’t turn my nose up at this.

A retirement contribution, no benefit offset for other income, and healthcare at company rates would do wonders and not be outside industry norms.

The issue is you spend so long to get to this point in your career where you can actually start building a financial future for yourself, a stable retirement, and send your kid to college, but it’s so easy to get a disqualifying condition and be otherwise healthy and functioning. The feds keep moving the goalposts on so many things too. They are also currently searching pharmacy records to see what prescriptions you are filling and catch you not reporting. I didn’t think that was even legal with HIPPA.

I don’t know how they would have time to do this with all of the other invasive activities they do.

According to some AMEs it’s happening.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that except not everyone is in the boat of just now building their retirement and whatnot. I can see the above being your priority if that’s been your trek in the career. Less so otherwise.

We’ll see where the industry is in two years and decide to spend negotiating capital on it or not.

Agree 100% While we made improvements with CBA 2018, our LTD still has some gaping holes that need to be addressed in the next CBA. Future income offset being the most glaring weakness in the current plan. Another problem is your 60% is based off your prior year’s W2. If you took an EIL and go out on disability in 2021, your benefit will be based off your reduced 2020 income until age 65 (assuming you lose your medical). Take a 3 month FMLA leave to care for a child or sick family member and then go out on LTD the following year? Tough. You are now financially punished until retirement age. The LTD benefit should be based off your highest W2 of the last 3 years to account for any single year income dips.

Exactly!!!!

For those of you with families that maximize all benefits (diamond or POS-A health insurance, life insurance, LTD plus up, etc.), approximately what is your total paycheck deduction each pay period / month?

Diamond for a family is $188 a paycheck.
LTD buy up for a junior captain is around ~$25 a paycheck.

Google search why paying for life insurance through your job is a bad idea. Should be about 1,000,000,000 results.

Yep, and looking outside your employer the ALPA policies are very good. My friend was a life broker right before he moved on the being a certified financial planner. He couldn’t touch the ALPA policies. He said I’d be silly not to buy one of them.

I have a 20 year term ALPA policy for myself and the wife. Rates are great especially if you qualify super premium

Anybody know if we get a special Costco member rate?

Perkspot says yes. Goldstar executive membership for $120.

Heck of a deal...


https://www.costco.com/join-costco.html

How do we manage to get these awesome insider discounts? haha

it’s an amazing deal 😂

Can anyone confirm or refute this bit, regarding spousal income? That’s pretty messed up, honestly. So you go out on disability & both of you are left sitting on your hands without access to any sort of employer-provided retirement or medical after the initial 5yr period?

Also, I know we don’t receive DC while on LTD - could someone on LTD continue contributing to the 401(k) themselves?

How about the HSA, during the 5yrs we maintain coverage? Would the company continue to contribute their share annually during that period? Could the employee opt to? Can the employee elect a different type of coverage for those 5yrs, such as switching from HDHP to PPO?

Ask the R&I committee.

These aren’t the life changing questions you want to ask on a forum.