Where do you commute to/from? How many Delta flights are there on that leg? How many 'other' carriers, or DCC flights on that leg?
I'm lucky in that I commute from MCO-ATL, because there are hourly Delta Mainline 757's (soon to be replaced by 737's) on that leg.
I book my 1st choice jumpseat, with two back up flights the 3rd will still get me to ATL an hour prior to sign in.
I typically get to ATL 4 hours prior to sign in, unless something happened to my primary jumpseat flight, which has happened a few times due to a weather divert and one time due to MX in MCO.
On the MX cnx flight, I called Crew Scheds and told them what was going on, they got me a pos space seat on my 3rd flight, which was oversold.
On the wx divert, we sat on the ground in Macon for 5 hours waiting for fuel and AWABS to get from there to ATL. I called crew scheds 3 times from MCN to update them on my progress. I told them there was a good chance I wouldn't make sign in, they said, "Well, just get here as soon as you can, we will hold your flight to Dubai for you."
As it worked out, I made it to ATL 30 minutes after sign in and went straight to the gate, looked at the other 3 pilots, asked, "Is everything done yet? I'll be flying this leg, so get out of my seat."
