If we go to a performance based pay scale, I want in my PEA that if my performance causes the company to go bankrupt, I can leave and take a $1 million severance. I mean, it works for upper managment, why not us, too?

Paying your crews shouldn't be called a "pitfall" that your competition fell into any more than buying gas for the planes should. It's part of the cost of flying airplanes.