I was very lucky, and I also planned well. I saved up all of my leave. I put my availability date as the day that I would first be able to start my 90 days of terminal leave and 20 days of PTAD. I was called to interview about 60 days before that day. I was receiving two paychecks for a little while.

Delta won't know and probably won't care if you push back your separation date. If you can't make the date, you can take a military deferral. I would try to avoid this, because you are giving up a lot of seniority.

There are jobs other than the military and Delta that you could take in the interim. They probably don't pay a whole lot, but they are better than nothing.

People need to plan ahead of time for this transition. I made the decision to move on, and I realized that I needed to make drastic changes to help that happen. A year and a half before I separated, I moved into the crappiest apartment I could find in Milton, FL. Rent was $499 per month. For 18 months, I put the $1000 a month I was saving on rent in to savings for my transition period. I'm sure you can find similarly creative things to do.