Southwest Pilots Aggressively Push Age 65

[SWA/FO]

Why does your pilot group insist on flying to age 65? Instead of subjecting the rest of us to your whims, why not insist and negotiate a real retirement from Southwest. We keep hearing how great the company is doing, yet you have no real retirement. To tell you the truth, it’s sad.

I guess, we as a group think its unfair that when you are forced to retire at age 60 you don't get SS bennies, and if our company had dumped our pension you get penalized for stop working at age 60 by the PGC. It was voted on by our pilot group and the majority wanted to go forward with the fight. We are a growth airline...most upgrade are because of new aircraft, we might view age 65 differently then a full size carrier. Southwest is not the only airline involved in this effort.

Pension? We do quite well with our 401k, profit sharing and stock options. Some improvements in this area? Maybe? We are negoiating a new contract starting on 8/1/06. Our current contract is at least 12 years old. We don't really get to excited about comparing ourselves to others. I think AA, CAL, Fed Ex & UPS have the safe pensions. I like the control we have with our own money. I think traditional pensions are gone with the wind.

We wont kill the golden goose..

 

[Bake]

A plan is something you do not the company you work for. My money is guaranteed. If SWA went out of business tomorrow that is my money. SWA does not control it. What is your plan?

 

[Bavarian Chef]

I'm sorry, why isn't a 401 and profit sharing a retirement plan? I fail to understand how GUARANTEED MONEY is not in my future. How is a Defined Benefit guaranteed retirement plan for you. Hence the word PLAN.

Wouldn't the traditional "A" plan be more of the classic defined benefit plan? Profit sharing is never guaranteed. But then a B plan probably isn't either.

 

[Bavarian Chef]

A plan is something you do not the company you work for. My money is guaranteed. If SWA went out of business tomorrow that is my money. SWA does not control it. What is your plan?

Same as yours, just less. Think calm, Bake. All is well.

 

[iflyhigh]

Bake:

You are crazy saying a pilot should only retire when he can't pass a medical anymore.

I flew with a 75 year old and a 70 year old. I can tell the were good. But the age 75 guy should really start thinking about retirement. He is slowing in his response times, (crap he almost hit a tree on final), he can't hear and he will not retire. Wants to die in an airplane. Crap I just don't want him to kill the copilot and passengers. (By the way this is corporate / 135.)

What you don't get is that some pilots don't know when to call it quits. By changing the age to 65, once again the government is just randomly selecting an age. It just happens to be Social Security age, or close to it. (Depends on how old you are.)

So I guess when the 20 somethings reach 45 and they are looking at retirement in the next 20 years, they will be looking to move the age to 70 years old, since they probably will not be able to collect Social Security till 70 or 72 possible.

I am not advocating keeping age 60 or increasing. We all know everyone ages differently. But we also know that there are FAA medical doctors out their that will sign just about any pilot off. This is a problem.

iflyhigh

 

[Bavarian Chef]

I guess, we as a group think its unfair that when you are forced to retire at age 60 you don't get SS bennies, and if our company had dumped our pension you get penalized for stop working at age 60 by the PGC. It was voted on by our pilot group and the majority wanted to go forward with the fight. We are a growth airline...most upgrade are because of new aircraft, we might view age 65 differently then a full size carrier. Southwest is not the only airline involved in this effort.

Pension? We do quite well with our 401k, profit sharing and stock options. Some improvements in this area? Maybe? We are negoiating a new contract starting on 8/1/06. Our current contract is at least 12 years old. We don't really get to excited about comparing ourselves to others. I think AA, CAL, Fed Ex & UPS have the safe pensions. I like the control we have with our own money. I think traditional pensions are gone with the wind.

We wont kill the golden goose..

What stock options do pilots get?

Oh yeah, almost forgot: If it wasn't for Southwest, we would've never found Antartica.

 

[SWA/FO]

Your match is no more secure than ours. And profit sharing can (I said can...) be unreliable. Now I fully expect SWA F/O to weigh in on this. SO while we all wait with bated breath in anticipation of complete arrogance and bravado, here's my take on what he will post:

Lets all type in jet blue color!!! Yeah!! Bavarain Chief!!

Why you hanging out on a Southwest Airlines thread? No excitment at your job? You feeling blue? :crying: You know you're allowed to reapply after 1 year. Thousands of options - you don't know? Some of the senior guys have 35,000 shares @ something like 3 bucks a share.

35,000 X 17.50 = $612500 - 105000 (cost of options) = $507500 not bad cash for 10 years worth of work.

 

[AA767AV8TOR]

Are you serious? You would actually advocate SWA adopting a defined benefit plan at this point? Read the papers... that dinosaur is DEAD. SWA's business model includes more than one "retirement plan" for the employees, do some research. Don't wish Delta's fate on the SWA pilot group.

Fly-diver,

You tell me. You are the guys advocating flying to 65 because of an inadequate retirement. Pretty sad, considering how well your company is doing. It could be an A plan, B plan, whatever. For your information, a B plan is a defined-contribution plan i.e. it's all yours in a bankruptcy.

Ultimately, there should be three legs to any good pension plan: defined-benefit (A plan), defined-contribution (B plan), and a 401K. You are right about A plans, they are dying for the common worker yet they are still used at the management level. UPS also has an A plan. Each of the legs has their own benefits and risks.

It seems like it's the Southwest pilots that need to do the research. A 401K plan, when developed in the 70's, was never meant to be a stand alone plan. You are seeing the results of that now, when your pilots must fly to 65 to make up for their lack of retirement. 401K’s were designed to work in conjunction with an A plan or B plan. Take it from me; you can not count on profit sharing every quarter or hoping the stock keeps rising in perpetuity.

Again, it the Southwest pilots that must figure out a retirement package that works for them and the company and not hose the rest of us with this stupid fly to you die rule.

AA767AV8TOR

 

[Soulfly]

All of us young guys will need to find a Santa Claus AME, so when we reach our 50's we can still obtain a first class.
There is no doubt the criteria for a medical will change. Probably something people haven't really thought about.
The age 65 guys might actually be pushing for a much earlier forced retirement. Though they aren't aware of it.

 

[Bavarian Chef]

Lets all type in jet blue color!!! Yeah!! Bavarain Chief!!

Why you hanging out on a Southwest Airlines thread? No excitment at your job? You feeling blue? :crying: You know you're allowed to reapply after 1 year.

Makes it easier to see my words when I do a post. Lowecur is mad at me for stealing his gig. It's no different than choosing a blue pen, vice black.

This issue of working to age 65 affects all pilots.

Never applied to SWA (but I love how you often use this one when your hamster starts slowing down). Many friends there though. All military -- sorry. Willing to bet I could get the help if I asked, just ain't asking.

 

[Bavarian Chef]

Lets all type in jet blue color!!! Yeah!! Bavarain Chief!!

Why you hanging out on a Southwest Airlines thread? No excitment at your job? You feeling blue? :crying: You know you're allowed to reapply after 1 year. Thousands of options - you don't know? Some of the senior guys have 35,000 shares @ something like 3 bucks a share.

35,000 X 17.50 = $612500 - 105000 (cost of options) = $507500 not bad cash for 10 years worth of work.

May I ask how they are distributed and when? Can you give us yours for example? Are they like jb, where every pilot recieves a set? Are they merit based? Bueller?

 

[brownie]

instead of fighting for this issue, make your union fight for real retirement so you don't have to hose 12000 guys on furlogh for your selfish cause and you don't have to fly 6 legs a day until retirement or drop dead which ever comes first.

 

[SWA/FO]

Based on date of hire... the quoted stock above is from the 1995 grants and the stock split a few times.

New stock options in 2002 with our extention to the contract. You vest each month. I think I get 190 shares a month throughout the contract. I have something like 6000+ shares most to be exercised by 2014. Just bonus money baby!!!

 

[Flopgut]

Bake:

Perhaps no one would need this relief if you guys didn't go to work with an inadequate retirement in the first place?

Tell you what I'm doing. I'm getting myself ready no matter what. Some may remember, you obviously don't, my father was an airline pilot and lost his entire, fully funded retirement plan around 50 yrs old. This business can get ugly quick no matter who you are; We got through it with some hard work and we didn't get to plan for it. You SWA guys sound so freakin desperate theres no way you could get through what my family did. A lot of you guys have worked there 20+ years, you now act completely ambushed! It's sad, most successful airline can't retire pilots comfortably. (or so you would have us all believe) Another thing I'm doing is towing the line. ALPA doesn't want it changed. I also support protecting the lump sum option at CAL. Recent legislation change efforts just about doused that for us and it's a big deal. Guys with around 25 yrs leave here with about 700k. (some as much as 900k)

I'm familiar with many of the Braniff types at SWA. They've got 20 or so years and most could get out OK. Frankly, it surprises me that they have not done better on the stock, right? It's really a mystery to me but I'm told it's not all it's cracked up to be. Bottom line, they can retire and get by OK, but they want the extra five cause it's all gravy at this point. It's the easiest money they'll ever make really.

Bottom line, we should not feed that greed imperative. We don't need to re-amortize the careers of everyone else for the lopsided benefit of a few. Where an FO might forego 300k in earnings for the five extra years, a CA makes around 3 times that amount in the same five years! The FO that took the hit won't get that back at all unless they also work past 60.

You SWA guys should keep working on a "local" solution to your problem. Expand the use of your sick leave for medical benefits age 60+. Start your own fund somehow, put a jar on every ticket counter maybe. Tell each of your customers how tough it is to be a SWA pilot post age 60, see if they want to throw in a few extra bucks. My guess is they'll tell you a story about the $8 ticket they bought to KSAT and ask you to share the wisdom in that with regard to your current retirement dilemna.

 

[SWA/FO]

Brownie this is not the cargo message board. You guys are doing fine. Don't let us interfere in your process. Why don't you guys give the work groups $hit that gave things back. We have not given anything back.

 

[Ex737Driver]

Based on date of hire... the quoted stock above is from the 1995 grants and the stock split a few times.

New stock options in 2002 with our extention to the contract. You vest each month. I think I get 190 shares a month throughout the contract. I have something like 6000+ shares most to be exercised by 2014. Just bonus money baby!!!

So again, where is your retirement?

 

[Bavarian Chef]

Based on date of hire... the quoted stock above is from the 1995 grants and the stock split a few times.

New stock options in 2002 with our extention to the contract. You vest each month. I think I get 190 shares a month throughout the contract. I have something like 6000+ shares most to be exercised by 2014. Just bonus money baby!!!

And the price? Does it adjust every month? Too bad they aren't immediately vestable.

 

[SWA/FO]

why do you ^ucking care about me? I will be ok. I don't work for CAL. Worry about yourself. You have all the answers, we have it all wrong at Southwest. Now you guys have to negioate your new contracts based on what we have? Why all the concern? I don't care what you have. It makes no difference to me. You will never see CAL + 1% at Southwest Airlines, we do our own thing.

 

[SWA/FO]

And the price? Does it adjust every month? Too bad they aren't immediately vestable

they are vested at 190 a month. You can do what you want with them. Our price for the 2002 options is 12.83. Most have held onto them waiting for a higher price, we gots some time.

 

[SWA/FO]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060718/cgtu056.html?.v=56
Well, at least they look like they are trying....

looks like NWA pilots might want to fly past 60? Where is their A plan? Where is the B plan? Looks like plan C to me.