For a guy hired in 2007 you've got a pretty good memory! Here's a little history of profit sharing at Delta.

We first got profit sharing in POS96. It paid on a ratio of income to revenue, and didn't pay until the company met a ratio of 2%. It was capped at 10% of pilot income (though it never made it that high). The plan paid 3.2% of pay for the 2 months of Delta's FY96 that remained, and 5% for FY97. That plan was modified (monetized) in 1998 to a flat 6% of income. Profit sharing wasn't included in C2K. C2K pay rates compounded upon that monetized profit sharing for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Only 2000 would have had profit sharing paid under the old plan, but the contractual pay raises continued until 5 months before the amendable date even though we had 1310 pilots on furlough, our pension plan headed towards termination, and our company headed towards bankruptcy.

Profit sharing returned as part of LOA 46 in November, 2004. It had 3 tiers, $0 up to $500M PTIX, 10% up to $1.5B PTIX, and 20% over $2.5B PTIX. It never paid.

As part of LOA-51 in April, 2006, profit sharing plan was improved. We got 15% first dollar up to $1.5B and 20% above that. That plan paid nothing in 2006, and 5.5% in 2007.

Profit sharing was modified again by the JCBA, with 15% of first dollar through $2.5 billion and 20% above $2.5B to reflect the increased scale and revenue base of the newly merged Delta-NWA. It paid $0 in 2008 and 2009, then 6.52% in 2010, 4.85% in 2011, and 6.67% in 2012.

We all know the changes that C2012 brought, where we monetized $43 million of profit sharing into pay rates (approx. 2% at that time) by reducing the percentage of the first $2.5B PTIX from 15% to 10%. The plan paid 8.26% in 2013 and 16.58% in 2014.

NWA also had profit sharing plans through the years with several changes in the varying CBAs. Their profit sharing plans paid as follows:

1998 - 0.2%
1999 - 0.5%
2000 - 0%
2001 - 0%
2002 - 0%
2003 - 0%
2004 - 0%
2005 - 0%
2006 - 1.85%
2007 - 3.77%

Saying that nobody believed that we'd hit the $2.5B PTIX number isn't correct. Saying that in April 2012 only the most optimistic projections had 2014 PTIX at $4.5B , or 2015-2017 above $5B would be correct, from my point of view. Whether it has been an ATC shutdown, middle east war, terrorism, fuel spikes, financial crisis or economic uncertainty, since deregulation something has always managed to bring the airlines down. Now that the industry is a little more rational, maybe things will be different.