usfliboi
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MEC CODE-A-PHONE UPDATE
March 10, 2003
This is Roy Freundlich with a US Airways MEC update for Monday, March 10, with three new items:
Item 1. As directed by the MEC’s March 5 resolution charging the Negotiating Committee to review the actuarial assumptions utilized in relation to the pilot’s DB plan, Committee members, ALPA’s actuaries, and the MEC’s independent actuary consultant met with Towers Perrin, the Company’s actuary consultant.
During this first meeting, the Committee and ALPA actuaries began the verification of the actuarial model used by Towers Perrin. ALPA established that the number of pilots used in the model properly reflected the recent furloughs and the current staffing of the airline, and the model shows that the staffing properly diminishes over the next five years through fleet plan adjustments, retirements, and productivity. ALPA and its advisors continue to work on the verification of the model, including verifications of pension liabilities by individual pilots and related pilot comparisons, and then re-verification of total pilot group liability from the individual and comparative analyses. Additionally, ALPA has requested that several different plan-funding scenarios be run at both current and projected liability interest rates. Any combination of reasonable assumptions that can preserve the plan are being sought. If the analyses performed show that the defined benefit plan is viable, the Committee will determine a structure to preserve the Plan through the identified savings.
The Negotiating Committee and its advisors also met with management to outline the three areas that management will have to address before an agreement with ALPA can be reached on a follow-on plan, if one is needed:
Management will have to provide more money for the pilots’ follow-on plan than the amount that they have already committed to,
Management will have to address the problems highlighted by the MEC’s rejection of the Company’s proposed plan, and
Management will have to address the issue of fairness, as the pilots have not been treated fairly in relation to current and past managements and in relation to other employee groups.
Negotiations are expected to continue throughout the week. Updates will be provided as information becomes available.
Item 2. The Legislative Affairs Committee reports that US Airway pilot Mark Schuler has been invited and will testify for five minutes on US Airways pilot pension issues before the Senate Finance Committee The hearing will occur tomorrow, Tuesday, March 11, at the Dirkson Senate Office Building, Room 215, at 10:00 a.m., and is expected to last until 12:00 noon. US Airways pilots are permitted and encouraged to attend.
Item 3. CRAF applications will be placed in all Chief Pilot Offices, Flight Training centers, and in each domicile crew lounge for those pilots who did not volunteer for CRAF during winterization testing. Applications are also available on the pilots’ only home page under urgent information.
Pilots wishing to add their names to the CRAF preference list may do so by completing the application form and sending it to the indicated address for processing. Applications must be received four business days prior to the assignment of a CRAF trip or CRAF training.
Please remember we have 1,827 pilots on furlough.
Thank you for listening.
March 10, 2003
This is Roy Freundlich with a US Airways MEC update for Monday, March 10, with three new items:
Item 1. As directed by the MEC’s March 5 resolution charging the Negotiating Committee to review the actuarial assumptions utilized in relation to the pilot’s DB plan, Committee members, ALPA’s actuaries, and the MEC’s independent actuary consultant met with Towers Perrin, the Company’s actuary consultant.
During this first meeting, the Committee and ALPA actuaries began the verification of the actuarial model used by Towers Perrin. ALPA established that the number of pilots used in the model properly reflected the recent furloughs and the current staffing of the airline, and the model shows that the staffing properly diminishes over the next five years through fleet plan adjustments, retirements, and productivity. ALPA and its advisors continue to work on the verification of the model, including verifications of pension liabilities by individual pilots and related pilot comparisons, and then re-verification of total pilot group liability from the individual and comparative analyses. Additionally, ALPA has requested that several different plan-funding scenarios be run at both current and projected liability interest rates. Any combination of reasonable assumptions that can preserve the plan are being sought. If the analyses performed show that the defined benefit plan is viable, the Committee will determine a structure to preserve the Plan through the identified savings.
The Negotiating Committee and its advisors also met with management to outline the three areas that management will have to address before an agreement with ALPA can be reached on a follow-on plan, if one is needed:
Management will have to provide more money for the pilots’ follow-on plan than the amount that they have already committed to,
Management will have to address the problems highlighted by the MEC’s rejection of the Company’s proposed plan, and
Management will have to address the issue of fairness, as the pilots have not been treated fairly in relation to current and past managements and in relation to other employee groups.
Negotiations are expected to continue throughout the week. Updates will be provided as information becomes available.
Item 2. The Legislative Affairs Committee reports that US Airway pilot Mark Schuler has been invited and will testify for five minutes on US Airways pilot pension issues before the Senate Finance Committee The hearing will occur tomorrow, Tuesday, March 11, at the Dirkson Senate Office Building, Room 215, at 10:00 a.m., and is expected to last until 12:00 noon. US Airways pilots are permitted and encouraged to attend.
Item 3. CRAF applications will be placed in all Chief Pilot Offices, Flight Training centers, and in each domicile crew lounge for those pilots who did not volunteer for CRAF during winterization testing. Applications are also available on the pilots’ only home page under urgent information.
Pilots wishing to add their names to the CRAF preference list may do so by completing the application form and sending it to the indicated address for processing. Applications must be received four business days prior to the assignment of a CRAF trip or CRAF training.
Please remember we have 1,827 pilots on furlough.
Thank you for listening.
28 AM ClueByFour wrote: 
