Drop 6 IVD days starting on the last day of a 4 day. Get paid for 6 IVD days and then pick up a 4 day that ends 1 day before the 6 IVD days start. In essence “selling” 5 vacation days.
This is a pay exercise not a time off exercise.

This is no different than taking the vacation when it is awarded and then white slipping a 4 day next to it. Total pay is the same, and you still have the same number of days that you are ineligible to fly.

I agree, that's a "waste" of the power of the IVD! Like bugman said, just WS a 4 day in a month you already have vacay to the same effect.

Here is the logic about monetizing ivds:

a sr bidder could plan to bid a line with weekends off so he can watch sports. Then he could drop ivds on those days off that he already planned to be off. Then the sr bidder could work more days in his original vacation month than he was forecast to work when vacation bids were awarded. Bidder now works more days, and earns more money, than he would have if he had kept his original vacation days. Sr bidder vacation days are monetized into 2x3day weekends he would have held off anyway.


sr bidder can hold thanksgiving off. Plans to see family. applies IVDS to thanksgiving weekend after November schedule confirms he held thanksgiving off. Sr bidder now is available to fly and earn more money over his quaternary or quinary week off.

fire away, I’m probably missing something.
trip

Can I sound like a much younger sort and reply with "tell me you've never used, nor understand the greatness of IVDs, without telling me you've never used nor understand the greatness of IVDs."

NO ONE thinks of IVDs as "monetizing" a damn thing. But they are priceless. The real benefit is that long after vacation bids are awarded, life happens and having the flexibility to use your IVDs makes life just a little better. Don't forget that IVDs are processed with the same priority as APDs, thus you only need 25% reserve coverage over the days you are trying to place the IVDs on.

Here are a couple of very recent examples from...me. I used one IVD to drop a reserve on call day earlier this month so as to extend a series of off days so I could go on a great fishing trip with my boys and some friends. I had no plans to go on this trip when I was bidding vacation back in Jan and Feb. But when June rolled around we had made some fun plans, and I used a day from my March vacation and applied to a reserve on call day. Now I had the flexibility to take a mini vacation fishing, instead of throwing a wrench into the works due to an on call day. Even better, for next month (July) I used four more IVDs placed right over a M-Th block of on call days, so I can go visit my parents who live in another state. Can you not see the life benefit to this? Or should I just happily hang onto to an otherwise-not-important week of March vacation because a pilot doesn't get IVDs and thinks we are all mercenaries for using them.

I remember some old grumpy sorts who once complained about why we were wasting efforts to secure Vacation Slide. "Why would you want to slide your vacation?" I was once asked. My reply was "so you think every pilot's vacation plans should always begin on a Sunday and end on a Saturday?" Again, life happens and plans change. That's why IVDs and Vacation Slide are both such great tools for increasing your QOL.

In both of your scenarios, the pilot has the same number of vacation days, and is ineligible to work on them. They also are subject to the same WS or FAR limits in both months. They are not able to work more in one month simply because they used an IVD. There’s no financial benefit to an IVD when compared with awarded vacation. Monetizing vacation days would be a true sell back where you just get the pay for the days and they never have any effect on your schedule, like what happens when you have unused vacation at the end of the vacation year and it gets paid out.

FedEx guy here.

What are IVD days vs. normal vacation? For junior folks, what vacations generally go more senior?

Our more seniority slots are over Christmas and during December for peak. It’s pretty easy to get a summer vacation slot.

Generally opposite for pax carriers. Summers more restricted, then holidays then rest of the year.

IVDs are the ability for delta pilots to take up to 6 days(total) of future vacation in up to two separate occasions to drop reserve responsibilities and/or a trip that touches that day with vacay pay for the Ivd days. Powerful cause you only need 25% reserve coverage to drop trip/reserve days. Holiday carve outs exist.

Yes that is “monetizing” ivds but to a vast amount of pilots, IVDs worth so much more to alter schedule than day of vacay pay. When you bid in top 5% of your category you can usually find a way for pbs to make your schedule as you want it. That leaves 95% though that have to resort to APD, ivd, or self help.

That’s why I said for super majority of pilot group that would be a “waste” of ivd.

Just to put the above post into a little context:

DAL Pilots have fairly extensive and flexible ways to modify their schedule via adding, dropping and swapping, both with open time (AKA "the open board") or with other pilots ("the swap board").

The ability to drop trips is predicated on the reserve coverage for each day of the trip. There is a formula that calculates reserve coverage required each day of the month based on historical data, and it changes based on a number of factors, including how much open time is on those days. That's all automated, so there's no putting a thumb on the scale. The other number is "reserves available", which is what it says, the number of reserve pilots available on that day...mostly.

If the number of reserves available is greater than the number required for all days of the trip, you can simply drop the trip outright, and that's called a personal drop (PD). There's no limit on this, and you can drop to zero if you want. You can then be off, pick up something else, etc over those days. You can also place a trip for pick up on the swap board, and if someone picks it up, you're scott free. Both of these are automated.

The wrinkle is if the number of reserves available is less than required on any day. In this case, there are a couple of "silver bullets" you can use. The first is an "authorized personal drop" (APD), which you get one per year. It lets you drop a trip that only has 25% of the reserves available vs required. You get up to four days of APD, but you only need one to drop a trip (or 2 2 day trips, or 4 1 day trips) or up to 4 days of reserve. The issue with APDs is you cannot do anything else on an APD day (no pickups).

Individual vacation days (IVDs) work exactly the same as APDs, but you can peel off days of a future vacation to do the same thing. You get 2 uses per year (occurrences, IE individual trip drops), and you may use up to 6 days vacation. There are ways to get more occurrences if your category wins a sick leave contest (sigh, no, I'm not making that up), but generally most people get 2 per year, but it can be as high as 4.

It's a pretty flexible system, and for the most part, it's totally automated.