Delta employees have reason to smile this week. $1.3BN in 2018 profit was distributed across the company’s 86,000 employees. For the average employee, that represented a $16,000 bounty!
Delta’s profit sharing program has returned profits to employees for five years in a row. A handshake or raffle? Nope. More like $16,000 per employee, a 14% bonus on base pay.
Meanwhile, American Airlines shared about $175MN in 2018 profit, representing a 1.4% bonus to employee base pay. United shared $334MN from its 2018 profit, representing a 4% bonus for pilots and 3% bonus for other employees (pilots negotiated a special deal in their contract).
Thus, my headline. Think about receiving almost an extra two months of pay. We’re not talking peanuts or enough money to buy some peanuts. We’re talking about enough to buy cars or make serious home improvements or invest in. The bonus is a symbol of hard work and perseverance…Delta has done so well to create a profitable, dependable machine.
Vacation Too…
Delta has also announced, like icing on the cake, that it will give each employee an extra paid day off to perform community service. Between April 2019 and March 2020, Delta employees will get one day off as long as they volunteer for a US-based 501(c)(3) or international nonprofit organization.
CONCLUSION
You could argue that a 1.4% bonus at American or 4% bonus at United are better than no bonus at all. And of course you’d be correct. But I have to imagine that as much as American and United employees will express solidarity with their Delta brethren for profit-sharing and paid vacation, there must be a deep pang of envy this week. We’re only human, after all.
(H/T: The Points Guy / image courtesy of Delta)
the unanswered question is total pay for the employee. big D is the unquestioned leader in profitability, but i can’t imagine that the unionized employees at AA and UA would allow there to be much divergence in total pay. If there is, i would imagine the union leaders would address this as soon as the contract became amendable. (if not, they would certainly find themselves unelected.
American has been trying to outsource more work and dwindle the Unions. The employees are on an expired contract and tired of begging for every little crumb.
I worked for Delta for 30 years (1972-2002). At the beginning of my career we didn’t know what profit sharing was but we were assured we would have a job and they never laid off anyone. Even when times were tough(mid to late seventies) they wouldn’t furlough pilots, flight attendants or CSR,s. they found other jobs they could do until they were needed at their original positions
We were paid bonuses and received pay raises yearly and our pay scale was at or above union scale. I guess it was an unwritten agreement between labor and management. Keep the unions out and produce a profit generating work force and everyone will win. Of course, that all ended with the Ron Allen and Leo Mullin regimes. After their tenures and 911 they had to reinvent themselves and it seems they did a fine job
Quite misleading article. The average employee makes no where near $16,000 in profit sharing. Youve included high paid pilots. Secondly, United and American have work rules in their contracts that provide vide extra pay throughout the year which translates into hight total compensation than Delta workers even with profit sharing included.
I call BS on your statement and I’m an AA employee.
My wife (flight attendant) was probably on the higher end and made $14k that year. It was a good year. Not sure about your claim of total compensation. If that were the case the other airline flight attendants would not be complaining about Delta and what their paying in profit if they made more overall. There would be no argument. Additionally you have to compare apples to apples regarding compensation. Obviously the union work rules have effects on customer service as well, if it didn’t why is Delta making substantially more money than AA and UA despite being a smaller airline. After 30 years my wife is still anti union and will continue to fight unionization. Her choice.
4% bonus at United for beating up a poor doctor sitting in his seat a knocking out his teeth
Haha you obviously have no idea what actually happened in that situation, but keep trying to spread fake news
Enlighten us please with your wisdom
Commentary from the ignorant that never worked for an airline, obviously.
Express was the carrier. No profit sharing for contract employees.
only Mainline employees. They did not beat up anyone. SO they are entitled to a bonus
Get your groups correct please.
Since that was actually the Chicago Airport PD, maybe they got the bonus. Oh wait, that didn’t even happen in 2018. Your lack of knowledge knows no bounds!
Being pedantic over old and overuse joke is a sign of a butthurt. Are you one?
That was Chicago police, not united employee.
That was Skywest Airlines, not United. It was Chicago Airport security. The “doctor” no longer has a license after multiple sex and narcotic felonies, he accepted $1000 to ge5 off the plane then forced his way back on while taunting them to remove him so he could sue.
If this payment is truly profit sharing it will likely be deposited into a tax deferred account(akin to a 401K). Not saying the employees won’t “receive” it, only that it really cannot be spent currently.
No, it goes directly into our paycheck. Hefty bonus tax though.
There is no “bonus yax”.
You are taxed at the same rate as regular income.
You may see higher witholding but that is not what you are taxed.
IRS does this because some people end up not having enough withheld since too much bonus pushes you into higher tax brackets.
You’d probably be more upset if you had to pay interest and penalties for under paying your taxes throughout the year.
The withholding rate for bonuses is 40%. At the source. Not sure if airlines are somehow different.
There absolutely is and they’re absolutely not. I’m an AS employee and our bonus was 6% with a 40% tax rate as well. Why go onto a public forum and spout nonsense that is easily refuted by a quick google search?
That’s your cash in hand it doesn’t “need” to be put anywhere. You go cash the check money in hand to do with it what you want.
Well Geoff I work for Delta currently and you actually have a choice, you can pocket the money and take it home or you can invest it into your 401k where if you do Delta actually gives you a 6% match. But yes it all your s and spendable now or later
Option is up to the employee.
All cash or contribute to 401k option is available
The individual chooses the percentage of each
Nope. Many options for putting some away in a 401k, HSA, etc but also the option to receive all of it now.
Employees DO receive the money…you can elect to have it deposited in your 401k, but it’s not mandatory. I know this for a fact because my husband is a United airlines mechanic.
I’m a delta flight attendant. I opted for my cash payout. We could receive it any way we saw fit, whether your 401k, IRA, cash, whichever.
Delta gets the whole check. I work for Southwest, we just got ours, and 10.8% goes into a retirement account and we received 0.8% in cash. Each year it varies ofcourse.
no it was republic operated not skywest
wait – what? $16K is 14% of avg base pay? That means average base pay, worldwide, is well north of $100,000. seems implausable.
Average base pay, as in average, not median. Can you imagine how off the average versus median base pay is in an American company ?!
That’s your cash in hand it doesn’t “need” to be put anywhere. You go cash the check money in hand to do with it what you want.
yes, $100,000 north.. would be accurate.
I work for Delta and I would say the avg full time employee make roughly 80-96,000 with overtime I have seen top of small employee’s make 115-145,000
I have been full time with Delta 25 years and have never made $80,000. Also, I didn’t even make half of that profit sharing number.
That’s too bad for you. It doesn’t add any data, though.
It’s true, Delta Airlines is the best airline to work for
Obviously, you never worked for United.
Yes the aviation industry is booming all mechanics make 100k at united
This is the dumbest blog. I won’t even call it an article or story, because clearly you have nothing better to write about. Maybe you should have compared employees bonuses vs management bonuses… then… maybe it would have been worth my 1 minute reading. Each airline has their own system, but I will say since United took on Kirby their bonus system has sucked for employees. Why don’t you write about that awful lottery program he tried for on-time performance bonuses? Or how management in general has screwed all the little guys from the Pilots to the Rampers? No, you make sure to say that Delta is laughing at everyone.
Maybe if you took the time to look, you would see that I have written extensively about the United bonus program.
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2019/02/09/united-airlines-january-2019-operational-performance/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/12/24/united-airlines-new-employee-bonus/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/03/05/united-airlines-bonus-cutbacks/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/04/24/oscar-munoz-bonus/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/03/05/united-reverses-course-employee-bonus/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/03/09/united-employee-bonus-changes/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/03/03/united-airlines-performance-bonus/
THANKS for reading.
(mic drop)
It would really be appreciated if Delta would be kind enough to use the extraordinary profits they’re making to pay back the pilot retiree’s pensions they took during Bankruptcy. If taking pensions from employees who spent 30 plus years earning them in service to Delta was used to enable Delta to keep going and become the extremely profitable airline they are today you’re welcome and we’re happy for you, Sadly, we and our families paid the price through no wrongdoing or ours. Even a pass privilege gesture for retirees who lost their pensions instead of continuing to move us to the bottom of the barrel below even other airlines current employees would be a nice gesture. You’re certainly free to go on acting as if we don’t exist and most likely will. Just saying. We still love Delta. They just don’t love us.
Have you sent in your experience and story as a letter to editorial staff of a newspaper? Or a public letter to Delta asking a publishing platform to help? You can also publish it yourself on Medium.com I think we will all learn a lot from your voice and perspectives so that people are aware of history and sacrifices and the people who had helped but been neglected due to time.
Crap Blog ~
“This is the dumbest blog…blah, blah,”
Yet you write the longest post.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”
Attributed to: Abe Lincoln
That’s your cash in hand it doesn’t “need” to be put anywhere(401k). You go cash the check. money in hand to do with it, what you want. North of $100,000 is correct… not implausible at all. Delta is a wonderful company.
The title for this article seems a bit off. It makes it seem like Delta employees are glad to see American and united people get shafted. In actuality we love to see other airline employees prosper. Perhaps no other industry has such a high level of comradery. Most of us have a great deal of friends at other airlines that got scattered all about during lay offs and other misfortune. As a Delta employee i can assure you Delta definitely has it’s issues as well. For one they can be very scamy. At times it seems like the bottom line is all that matters then they come out and hold up a profit sharing check and brag about it. First they take a ton of untrained non aviation workers on to work on their planes and funnel them in through DGS who instructs the recruits to lie and say they have a Brazilian aircraft mechanic cert or that they were avionics techs in the military and contract them to work on their planes (essential systems flight controls structures ect) that real living people fly on and then have the nuts to preach safety and quality. Of coarse no one talks much about it because they aren’t protected from retaliation by a union or even fair labor practices. Also Delta is rife with nepotism and people getting special deals and treatment. But wait you aren’t qualified or educated to do a highly skilled job and repair or maintain an aircraft don’t worry. They got a guy that will sign some papers saying that the year and a half you spent sweeping the floor and changing seat cushions qualifies you to become an a&p (for some type of trade or monatary exchange of coarse) and then pay someone down in baker Tennessee a couple grand to say you passed a test and bam your other in law just bought you a 120k a year job. so when you are screaming through the air at almost the speed of sound just think that person that was just working on your stabilizer actuator had no clue what he was doing and in fact a year ago was smoking dope and spinning records as a dj. Now how about some actual over site. in the last 5 years in have not once seen an actual break your balls faa inspector at Delta in msp that was a regular almost weekly thing at every other airline I’ve worked at. Airline professionals should be held to a high standard and right now we definitely are not. Every day our quality work foce is being diluted with absolute reckless disregard for aviation safety. so yeah I’m great ful for actually having a job and making some money but it isn’t sustainable and seems sleazy. Enjoy your flight and make sure you keep your seat belt fastened because I’m expecting turbulence.
Happens a lot in tech and management/vendor hiring, too – fake it til you make it (or break some systems and point fingers) crowd – obviously not as critical as equipment, but I agree, ultimately not sustainable all around.
That’s not an exaggeration on United’s profit sharing. So sad!
Can’t have programs like this with the current management at UA & AA,,,
The only thing they care about is making their boards happy by lining their pockets. Employees and customers aren’t high on their list.
Happy employees make happy customers… Happy customers turn into loyal customers… It’s not hard
Oh woe is me! As a loyal AA legacy Flight Attendant for nearly 30 years who has “taken one for the team” since after 9/11 I say, YES…..THAT SMARTS!!!!
this is where subtle differences in methodology and stage length actually comes into play (i’m not saying it closes the gap, but to use the PR numbers aren’t even apples to apples) :
1. DL’s $1.3B is pre-tax (pg 15, https://s1.q4cdn.com/231238688/files/doc_news/2019/01/Delta-Air-Lines-Announces-December-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2018-Profit.pdf) , while UA’s number is post-tax (see : “Profit sharing, including taxes” at https://hub.united.com/united-airlines-reports-full-year-2626098817.html)
2. DL’s isn’t all that mainline.
For all the urban myth about UA is all ERJ but DL is nothing but brand new A321s, please see this line item :
Regional Capacity Purchase Expense, FY 2018
UA $2.601 B
DL $3.438 B
someone correct me here, but i don’t think the regionals get any of that sharing chunk, so it could be a shrewd way for DL to stiff a large swath of the customer facing workforce.
3. Stage Length, and UA’s heavy skew on ULH services.
my ex was a 744 First Officer and I’ve been privvied to their exact scheduling timetables, including rest times a such. Even though on the high level the pay charts feel like DL are getting the same base rates, just the nature of the route network being far shorter hops mean that once factoring in mandatory pilot/crew rest requirements.
So in order for total base pay to be equal, they would have be working far more total hours to achieve the same “engine-on” hours. (and that’s why the senior pilots always much prefer longer haul instead of constant never-ending series of puddle jumper flights)
4. Fleet distribution.
UA flies far more widebodies than DL or AA for that matter, so Let’s not even pretend this is the same. and those command significantly higher pay scales for the same hour, even if you’re doing short hops like ORD-EWR etc.
Based on these factors, and given the universal fact that unions wouldn’t allow such an amplified arbitrage distortion to exist for any extended period of time, my guess is that due to the structural differences in flight offerings, even assuming the exact same level of productivity, the monthly base pay is smaller on the DL side, and made up with a larger profit sharing agreement.
That is interesting…
Your thought process is based on common sense and thus very inaccurate. Delta employees make nearly identical income to United employees and more than American. United called 2018 the Year of the Employee and then delivered the lowest profit sharing we have gotten in 7 years. 2019 is being labeled the Year of the Employee so expectation is that it will go down significantly more.
American airlines is garbage. Management is terrible, union is a MOB, majority of employees are straight hood. Upper management likes their cookie cutter and the way it works, any fresh and outside of box ideas are dismissed. Union carries tons of dead weight and is corrupt. Employees? 80% laziest people who will avoid any work. This is Philadelphia hub.
I get 1.4% I give 1.4%. Minus my points. IDGAF!
As a former employee of one defunct airline and American, I remember the bad old days when we ran to the bank to cash the check before they could declare bankruptcy. When pay cuts and confessions were necessary to avoid it. The employees deserve every penny they get for sticking with it. I jumped ship, and am glad I did. I’m doing way better in a different industry than 95% of airline employees.
Just so it’s clear to the author, nobody with half a brain thinks you’re saying delta employees are laughing at AA & UA employees. My feeling is that those of that opinion are AA and UA employees.
You are not correct. After taxes I got 12,000 deposited in my account.
There is more to the compensation package than profit sharing. UA has excellent, inexpensive medical, dental and vision insurance. I’m also fairly sure that union negotiated work rules don’t come free of charge.
Profit sharing scam at jetBlue… ask employees what they received on record profit even after multiple share buy-backs and tech ventures….
.02%… or 3 million dollars. Employees have zero incentive to help the greedy airline. You ask why the airline now has unions? Also, the company is rudderless as it continues to force culture by email with nothing but threats and intimidation… jetBlue has become the worst airline in the industry.
SHUT THE HELL UP! We LOVE OUR Company & Our JOB!!!
16k per employee? Joke. Fake news. I work for delta this did not happen
True. I work full-time at DL and made less than HALF that amount in profit sharing. Some pilots, however, banked up to TEN TIMES that amount. No laughter here.
I work at one of the three major airlines. When I calculated my base pay with the 14% profit sharing, it was no where near $16,000.
Base pay for a United mechanic is 103000. Delta techs make more
This is greatly skewed by pilot and executive pay. Flight Attendants making north of 90k are few and far between and are definitely capped out on the pay structure. Out of 25k of us, there might be 200-300 that made 16k in profit sharing. And that’s the tea, sis.
Management does not get profit sharing, however, your right pilots and AMT are definitely are getting the lion share of the profit sharing
I’m united csr my profit sharing is a little over $1100 after taxes❤️Don’t know the right solution but the way it’s distributed now is so not right! But any little bit helps. Thanks
$16,000? Where did you get your info? As a 30+ year Delta Flight Attendant, I can tell you not ONE of my FA colleagues that I know got close to that. If you are averaging us in with the Pilot group, some of which go upwards of $35,000 or more, then maybe that’s were the “average” came from. Please stop the spin!
That’s not true. I’m also a 30+ FA at Delta and my profit sharing was over 14K and no I don’t fly 150 hours per month! I just flew with a FA that does fly a lot of hours and their PS was over $22K. I agree it’s not the norm but it’s not unheard of
Your information for this article is incorrect. I am a Delta employee. Do your research before spreading lies! Also I don’t laugh at my colleagues at other airlines. Such a tacky way to lead in to an obnoxious news article.
I’m just reporting the facts. If you want to share your personal story about why you are unhappy about your bonus, please let me know and I’m happy to interview you.
So much inacurate reporting in this article. Only the highest paid top of scale non-pilot front-line employees saw anywhere close to $16k (MAYBE a topped out mechanic with some OT thrown in). This does not represent the “average” employee. Mechanics were “thanked” for their NO union vote in 2011 with outsourced DGS mechanics joining them on the line. Did Delta write this article because they also told us that our share would be “on average” $4500 more per employee? I am still four figures short of $4500 more.
IAM reprsented United employees are also laughing at us given the fact that they have a pension and health insurance that will not send a family into BK. At Delta, well, you might want to start a list of BK attorneys for when your kid needs surgery.
No one at DL can “laugh” when the “worlds most valued” employees are signing A-cards to unionize the ramp just to get benefits like vacation and health insurance.
The average employee at DAL did not earn the 6 figures necessary to make a $16,000 bonus.