Posted on 09/05/2006 2:24:20 PM PDT by TUAN_JIM
NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. bankruptcy court on Tuesday allowed Delta Air Lines Inc. (DALRQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) to terminate its pilot defined benefit pension plan, clearing a major hurdle in its restructuring plans
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I got that number from Bloomberg.com, which isn't allowed to be linked to here. BusinessWeek shows the same dollar amount. They don't say how the amount was calculated.
Thought so. I referenced the official government tables. Do you suspect a propaganda motive on the part of Bloomburg, or is it they don't want us copying their stuff lest our fact checkers demonstrate how wrong they are.
http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/wire/sns-ap-delta-hearing,1,7331296.story?coll=sns-ap-investing-headlines
The LA Times says about $75,000
Maybe Delta's lawyers lied? Or, maybe the "newsie" putting together this story didn't comprehend what 39% of existing retirement liability really means when the company is talking in the sense of "if the plan is terminated".
That 39% is about $30,000, or 2/3 of the maximum table value.
Remember, that would include existing and newly retired pilots as of 2006, on average, and the article has no information at all on what the current average really is.
All Delta has to pay when the plan is terminated is enough money to support an annuity that pays pilots annuities according to the government's schedule.
My entire working career was for a corporation owned by an invidual. He didn't want the bother of "plans" of any kind, so he used the mindset of "you're all big boys and girls" and paid us much better than average with the idea that if we wanted benefits, etc., it was our choice.
In my case it worked well - wifey and I bought a vacation home as our retirement plan, and got it paid off....we live here now, and it's worth probably 6 times what we paid for it.
Personally, I'd always rather be paid the extra money and control it myself. I don't trust my employer to manage my money better than I can.
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