There was no take. A better question was what were the options? Management waited way to long to file chapter 11 trying to protect their precious stock options and ran us dangerously low on cash. The original judge who at least seemed somewhat pro labor Delta managed to get replaced by a hard core anti labor judge.
We made the best of a very bad situation. Most have no idea how close Delta was to liquidation. We preserved the basic framework of our work rules and converted a big chunk of the retirement into other income. (MPP money, note money, claim money, PBGC, DC plan ect..)
We avoided the 6 year chapter 11 contracts airlines like NWA, USAIR, UAL were forced into with a 3 year deal. We positioned the airline so that it could succeed and have been making a recovery far more rapid then I ever thought possible.
If I had posted on this forum in 2007 that Delta would be the first choice of most new hire pilots 7 years later I would have had a thousand posts telling me how crazy that was. We still have further to go but we have come a long way.