Once more, your rhetorical take users monocular vision to portray the problem.

Yes, buybacks enhance positions held by DAL executives.

But as a PUBLICLY held concern the mission of the Delta BoD is to return value to their shareholders. Buybacks do this two ways. It gives some shareholders payouts and decreases the number of shares thereby increasing individual stock share prices. But you know this.

So to say that a stock buyback program is wholly a ploy by management is misleading.