Just reviewing the previous years 10-K reports prior to tomorrow. Here's my argument for variable compensation remaining in pilot compensation. The at risk portion will not really be at risk.

From the 2013 10-K amendment filing:



Pay for performance

Pay for performance is the foundation of our executive compensation philosophy. Our executive compensation program places a substantial portion of total compensation for 2013 at risk: 94% of our Chief Executive Officer’s and 90% of our other named executive officers’ total compensation. Furthermore, the majority of total compensation is paid in the form of Delta stock, which, together with our stock ownership guidelines, aligns the interests of management to those of stockholders. We believe our stockholders recognize this alignment as shown by the significant approval of our executive compensation program through an advisory vote at our 2012 and 2013 annual meetings.

The P&C Committee sets stretch performance goals under our annual and long-term incentive plans to drive Delta’s business strategy and to deliver value to our stockholders. Consistent with these principles:


• The vast majority of the compensation opportunity for our executive officers is earned contingent upon Delta’s achieving its financial, operational and customer services goals and stock price performance.

• Based on our strong performance in 2013, we paid out 168.75% of target under our annual incentive plan and 200% of target under our 2012 long-term incentive plan.

• The P&C Committee designs our incentive plans to closely align the interests of management with frontline employees by using many of the same financial and operational performance measures in both our executive and broad-based employee compensation programs.
If there is no payout under Delta’s broad-based employee Profit Sharing Program for the year:
- There will be no payment under the annual incentive plan’s financial performance measure.
- Any payment to executive officers for other performance measures may not exceed the target level.
- All payments will be made in restricted stock rather than in cash, which will not vest until there is a subsequent profit sharing payment.

The Profit Sharing Program paid out a record $506 million for 2013.



2013 Compensation Decisions.

The P&C Committee reviews our executive compensation program annually. In 2013, few changes were made to the program. These changes are described in this Compensation Discussion and Analysis.