A deadzoner is a pilot who will end up with a smaller retirement than the majority of pilots because he lacked sufficient time for the DC plan to fund a replacement retirement when the DB plan was terminated. When the DB plan was initially frozen it had a greater effect on the bottom third of the seniority list and would have left that portion of the list with a smaller benefit. To compensate for that the then new DC plan was targeted to proved the bottom third of the list a much higher DC benefit. Deadzoners saw between 0 and 3% DC money. The bottom of the list saw up to 18%. The goal was to attempt to provide each pilot regardless of seniority a 49% FAE benefit. The company provided funding for a straight 9% to every pilot. The union targeted that money from 0 to 18% per pilot based on the amount of your frozen benefit plus a age factor.
In the event the DB plan was terminated the union stated they would retarget future DC funds to make the pilots receiving under 9% whole. That never happened and we went to a flat rate DC plan so deadzoners lost that DC money. In addition the money via the note and claim received when the DB plan terminated was initially supposed to be based on how much a pilot lost with the termination of the DB plan. When the calculations were run it left the bottom of the list with a very small payout. The note and claim money was redistributed with a new formula where they refigured everyone’s lost DB benefit by plussing all pilots up to a FAE of 205,000. When that still sent the majority of the funding to the top of the list they added a payment minimum based on years of service to again plus up the bottom of the list.

Having said all of the above most deadzoners should have a comfortable retirement if they did not blow the note and claim money on boats booze and multiple marriages. They also saw a nice increase in PBGC money when the stock the PBGC received for assuming the DB plan performed so well the PBGC was forced by law to increase the Delta pilot payments.

In summary the union back then made the decision as a issue of fairness to attempt to provide all pilots with a roughly equal retirement by providing targeted funding from the DC and note and claim. The union was controlled at that point by the same pilots who some are calling greedy today when those pilots are now asking for some type of targeted system to provide a more equal projected retirement benefit.