Delta Air Lines giving 14.5% raise to many of its employees

Ben Mutzabaugh | USA TODAY

Pay raises are coming for many Delta Air Lines employees.

The carrier said Wednesday it will boost base pay by 14.5% for many of its employees. The carrier also will up its match on employee 401(k) contributions from 5% to 6%.

The Seattle Times says "the changes affect all Delta employees except top executives plus two unionized groups with separate contracts: some 13,000 pilots and a couple of hundred dispatchers." Overall, about 80,000 employees work for Delta worldwide.

The compensation changes follow Delta's $4.5 billion profit in 2014.

"When combined with the April (annual pay) increases, pay rates for most employees will be up 18% or more in 2015, providing you with record pay raises in a year of record profits. Few companies can match that," Delta CEO Richard Anderson and President Ed Bastian said in a Wednesday memo to employees.

While Delta is moving to boost base pay, it also will change its profit-sharing formula. The Associated Press says the new profit-sharing formula "could boost payouts after lean years but might reduce them after highly profitable years such as 2014."

AP spells out the details:

"Currently Delta shares 10% of the first $2.5 billion in annual adjusted pre-tax profit with employees and shares 20% of profit above that. Starting with payouts in 2017, the formula will change — the 20% payout will start when pre-tax profit tops the previous year's amount."

"Profit-sharing will remain a permanent part of your total compensation, but you have made it clear that you want more in your monthly paychecks," Anderson and Bastian said in the memo, according to the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis.