DAL 88 Driver

In this quote, you disagree with my position.


And in this quote, you seem to be supporting my position.

Sorry, Alan. You can't have it both ways. (Only slimy politicians get to do that! )

And maybe we're talking past each other to some degree. I don't remember ever labeling anyone as an "undercover agent" deliberately working against the pilot group. It's certainly possible for someone to work against the best interests of the pilot group without them being some kind of traitor/double agent. Some people are just misguided and do dumb things. That's life. (That's Moak! ) All I'm doing is trying to get enough people to rethink the way things have been/are being handled so that pressure will be brought to change it.

Alan Shore

Not at all. I'm not sure what I said there that could be construed as that. I simply discussed other pilots' points of view and your reaction to them.

I think that's probably true. Carl and I have been guilty of that as well from time to time.

I guess that's what I'm talking about. IMO, no one has a monopoly on the "correct" perspective of our past, current, and future labor issues. Neither you nor I nor anyone else has the right to proclaim his own views to be correct and to characterize those who disagree with those views as "misguided" and prone to doing "dumb things."

That's life.

OldFlyGuy

OK, now we are "discussing" something. No food fights. I think when the plan was terminated it was 40 something percent funded and would have required an infusion of over a billion$ plus the ongoing $$ to save it. I asked a lot of questions of a lot of people at the time. Of course DAL saved $$ with the termination--how much? I dunno. We got reamed, roger that. For a newbie starting out 15% DC with a reasonable return could add up to pretty big money. Obviously, there are a ton of problems with 401k vs DB plans. Companies give employees less $ in DC plans than they would have spent on DB plans (how many times have you read articles about "conversions" and "savings" to the corporation?-100% of the time). Throw in market risk, longevity risk, no company $ to back you up in a decline, probably higher fees vs what "the plan" would pay, and how many of us are professional money managers in the first place? Knowing I was making a ton of assumptions I tried to ballpark what it would take to replace a 60% DB plan--reasonable rate of return--no black swans in the intake. 30yr career--age 60--IMO 15% won't do it. 35yr career--age 65--16%--maybe: but the individual is still shouldering all the aforementioned risks, ie you'ld still need some pad. Again, these are my rough calculations and I don't play an accountant on TV. I'm guessing 16% DC is low hanging fruit. More is better IMO. But, not everyone agrees with me. A bunch of us would prefer more $ in their own names as they would rather own rental houses or their own side business. How many want to go back to a DB plan even if we could negotiate it? I'm guessing not many. To each their own. OFG

DAL 88 Driver

Maybe in some politically correct namby-pamby world where everyone gets a trophy for participating. But in the real world, people certainly can be misguided and do dumb things. I have the right to say that anyone who would accept such a drastically lower value for our profession is misguided and even dumb. That's my opinion, which I have a right to. Just as much as you have a right to be misguided and dumb.

But seriously, I really do think that writing off the value of this profession is an extremely misguided and dumb thing to do. And I would bet that anyone looking at it objectively would say that taking the kinds of cuts we took 10 years ago in an emergency, and then spending the next 10 years acting like that's just the new normal, is writing off a significant portion of the value of this profession. The math is pretty cut and dried. I honestly don't know how one could look at it any differently. Your mileage may vary.

Timbo

As far as how much money the DC plan saves the company vs. the DB plan, there's a number out there somewhere, I'm sure the company bean counters know exactly how much money they saved by going to a DC plan vs. DB funding. I only wish DALPA knew that number and held the company accountable for it.

sailingfun

The plan had about 5 billion in obligations and was down to about 1 billion in funding when it was terminated.

Timbo

OK, so how do we "restore" that? What's the value of that lost $4 Billion ten years ago, today, vs. the 15% DC funding?

You know the DC plan must be saving them a bundle, heck, it's based on 15% of our 16 year old pay rates!

sailingfun

Much of what was required to restore the funding was provided via the various pots of money and the PBGC. You would have to run a spreadsheet for each pilot and add the MPP plan, note cash and PBGC money to determine what each pilot actually lost from the frozen plan. In my case It looks like at age 60 I will have lost about 25% give or take a bit. If I add in the claim money it gets better however officially that cash was to help offset the pay cuts so I don't include it. Many pilots are saying they have been made whole. I did not make the best investment choices so am down.

Timbo

I can't understand how anyone was 'made whole', unless they were very junior at the time and had very little vested in their DB plan.

I know the 6 guys in my new hire class who left just prior to bankruptcy to protect 50% of their DB money got around $700,000 each, depending on which equipment they were on, FAE, and all of that.

If 50% of their DB was $700K, 10 years ago, then 100% was 1.4Million, 10 years ago. Now, take that $1.4M, add in 10 more years of growth, and what would it be today?

The guys at American with that much time in service have roughly $3Million today in their retirement plans. I'll never have anywhere near that with 15% contributions from the company!

sailingfun

Tim, every Delta pilot was provided with a statement when the plan was frozen detailing what they had in the plan. It's not hard to run numbers from there. I know you said you spent all the money on booze and hookers however I suspect that's not quite the case.