Delta had what is called a Defined Benefit Retirement program. Due to favorable funding laws, they had not made a single dollar deposit to that fund in over 8 years, from 1996-2012, because the fund was growing fast, along with the stock market. But after the hijackings of 9-11, and the ensuing economic plunge, when they filed for Bankrutpcy in 2004, the fund was suddenly underfunded, buy about $4 Billion. So they flushed the Pilot's pensions and told us to talk to the PBGC. In 2004, after 19 years of service, my piece of the retirement pie was $1.4M. I got zip point nada.

To put it in perspective, I have many good pilot friends at American Airlines, which also filed Bankruptcy, but their retirement fund was not so badly underfunded, so they kept all of theirs. The guys I've talked to there with similar years of service to me (over 27 years now), have about $3 Million in their retirement funds today.

Now we have a 401K program, but we had to start from scratch, at age 50...and try to come up with enough in the short 15yr. remaining (for me), to fund our own retirements. It's all good though, our management team got huge bonuses...

I've got my retirement plan all figured out:

"Hi, Welcome to WalMart!"