ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- US Airways flight attendant leaders decided last night to let their rank and file vote on a new pact that would shrink paychecks, cut benefits and help the nation's seventh-largest airline out of a jam.

The seven-year, $94 million concessionary deal, if approved, effectively cuts the pay of 5,200 flight attendants by 9 percent, reduces top vacation time from 40 to 25 days next year and withholds any company contributions to a new retirement plan through 2008.

But in sending out the tentative agreement, the union's Master Executive Council did not provide guidance as to how members should vote, offering only a "neutral" recommendation.

"I can't say I am for or against it," said Teddy Xidas, the union's president-elect and a member of its executive council. "I think we did the best we could under the dire circumstances we found ourselves in." The deal, if ratified, could help the nation's seventh-largest airline survive bankruptcy for a second time.

It is also part of a larger $1 billion request that US Airways made of its four major unions, claiming the new sacrifices will give it a "fighting chance" to survive past January. So far, it has a ratified agreement in hand from more than 3,000 pilots and tentative agreements from the flight attendants and passenger service workers.

That leaves only the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers -- a powerful union representing almost 10,000 baggage handlers and machinists.

The IAM, which has said it will not sacrifice large numbers of jobs, is still talking with the airline but does not appear close to an agreement.

US Airways has a motion before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Stephen Mitchell asking that union contracts be canceled absent consensual agreements with the company. If the flight attendants and passenger service workers ratify their agreements in the coming weeks, they would be exempt from the company's request, leaving the IAM as the last holdout.

Hearings on the company's abrogation request continued yesterday and could wrap up today.

The judge is not expected to rule until January, perhaps giving IAM negotiators more time.

One part of the company's $1 billion concessionary request not covered in agreements with the flight attendants or passenger service workers is retiree health care, which the airline would like to cut by $40 million a year, affecting 10,000 current and former employees.

That topic dominated the courtroom testimony yesterday, after the judge approved a new financing agreement with aircraft lender GE that gives US Airways $140 million in short-term liquidity and the ability to defer aircraft debt and lease payments.

One ex-employee who traveled a long way to hear the testimony was US Airways retiree George Jacobs, who lost his right leg working the ramp and loading airplanes at Philadelphia International Airport.

Clinging yesterday to a walker and moving slowly through the federal courthouse, the 67-year-old Jacobs worried aloud about the company-sponsored health care that pays for treatment of his leg. Patting what is left of the appendage, now cut off at the hip, Jacobs said, "I shouldn't have to work no more."

Without the coverage, he added, "I couldn't make it."