Originally Posted by
slocouple
Not to impugn the pilots, but is this the "rats from a sinking ship" phenomenon?
Partly. It's primarily because of a quirk in the pilot's pension that permits them the benefit of hindsight when they retire, by giving them a 60-90 day look-back at the asset values (different published sources reference 60 or 90 days). It's happened in prior years when the markets fall substantially - huge market declines generally cause a big uptick in early pilot retirements. The additional fear that AA might file for Ch 11 (and terminate the pilot pension) probably enhanced the number of early retirements over the past several months.
So when the stock market tanks, they can pretend they retired 60-90 days prior to their actual retirement and lock in the historic stock values. So on October 1, they could decide to retire but take the August 1 values (which were substantially higher). When the market is very volatile, this can mean tens or hundreds of thousands of additional dollars per pilot. It's a fantastic benefit that insulates the pilots somewhat from market volatility as their retirement date approaches.
It would be great to be able to sell equities today with the option of selling them for the prices those equities were worth 60-90 days ago, no?