We took a 42% pay cut, lost our pension, and had thousands of our jobs outsourced resulting in a full decade of stagnation. And today (10 years later), our rates are still 34% below the buying power of Delta's pilot rates throughout most of the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's.

A good argument can be made that those of us who have been here the past 10 years have contributed in the neighborhood of $1 million EACH to Delta' recovery. And all we're asking is that our compensation be restored going forward. That means an increase in W2 of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50%. Keep my $1 million. Just fix my compensation going forward, now that Delta is historically profitable and our industry has been restructured in a way that should result in more consistent profitability in the future.

I think that is an extremely reasonable (and generous) position. To argue against that position means accepting bankruptcy as a reset, establishing a new baseline from which we only expect "reasonable" improvements. I see no way to characterize that other than "working against the best interests of the pilot group."