The problem with your arguements is that the airline business is cyclical.
1-2 years from now this will all be a distant memory and the airlines will be back to making a profit, whether or not the pilots or any other group makes a concession. And if the groups make a concession, will the airlines give it back? History emphatically says no.
Delta is sitting on BILLIONS of dollars, and while they are losing money, the losses are less now than they were last month and revenue continues to slowly improve.
Delta piled up a huge warchestduring the good times of the last 5 years or so while they were accumulating cash under a concessionary contract signed during the last downturn. Wages have barely kept pace with inflation. So they may have to spend some of the cash in the short term. It maybe wiser to do that and keep the employees happy so that they might better serve the public, rather than try and wring concessions out of a work force and **** them off and as a result drive away their pax.
Delta had a program called 7.5 ten years ago. They were going to get their seat mile costs down 7.5 cents per mile, thinking that it was the key to competing with Southwest who has 7.0 cents per mile costs. Well, they did it, they got the seat mile costs down to 7.5 and as a result they LOST THEIR ASSES! The customer service that commanded the large fairs were gutted so revenue dried up.
They very quickly backed off that plan and gave everyone else back what they had taken (except for the pilots who were the only unionized employees with a contract) drove their costs UP, improved their service as a result and made BILLIONS. The pilots just took untill their contract was amendable to get their raises.
Continental had a similar program called "CAL LITE" that just about put the whole company back into bankrupcy a 3rd time. The first thing Gordon Bethune did when he took over was the throw out all the managers that thought like you pilot bashers do!
Southwest is NOT a major's competition and they had forgotten that. Southwest competes with the automobile. Southwest and AA coexist in Texas quite well thank you very much, Southwest isn't interested in feeding people, and AA isn't interested in running a cattle car. When southwest comes into a market, they don't really kill the preexisting airlines as much as they generate more traffic because you can fly Southwest for less than it costs to drive. But not everyone likes flying Southwest.
Wino