That's true for most pilots, but any North guy that had more than 1200 hours of sick bank gets to use it until his equivalent sick bank was exhausted. It was a direct exchange for the value that they brought over in the merger. Delta is subsidizing the DPMA payments.

South guys/gals,

Do you have any way to predict how junior a position will go when an AE is published? I know I saw a place on DeltaNet where you can see where you fall as far as preferences--forgot where it is though. Where is it and is that updated daily or every month?

I think DPMA is only applicable to Short Term Disability... not Long Term.. Once that is used up THEN you are considereed LTD, and DPMA goes away. I could be mistaken though.

I don't know if you guys have access or are using DBMS currently, but if you can go onto DBMS and you can look under the Advance Entitlements tab. I believe it's option (H.

Then you can look at your relative seniority in a given category and also look at pilots that are senior to you that have a bid in for that category. Keep in mind that with this option;

1) Many pilots won't put there bid in until the last minute, so you're not seeing them.

2) The pilots that are senior to you that have put in for a category may have put in qualifiers that would allow you to get the bid ahead of them because they said they either wanted to be a "line holder" or maybe 40% in category. You don't get to see their qualifiers....

Hope this helps..... Good luck!

TC

Also it does not look at VD or MD preferences only AE preferences.

Thanks guys. So, the qualifiers for the AE will probably decrease the amount of senior bidders ahead of you. But, with this AE, the VD and MD will probably increase the number of senior bidders ahead of you. Is that right?

With the upcoming series of AEs, it might be wise to open a new sticky thread on AE,VD,MD,DH,DDA, MickeyDs, all kinds of Ds out there. Just a thought.

No thread required:

AE - Aerospace Engineering (a process Boeing used to use)
VD - Venerial Disease (the itch you cannot scratch, you shouldn't have gone so cheap in AMS or GRU*)
MD - Medical Doctor (more beaten down than the average line pilot)
DH - Decision Height (the altitude to which you determine what kind of Captian you're flying with... does not apply to Delta, just SWA)
DDA - Derived Decision Altitude (MDA + 50')
Mickey D's - McDonalds (great food to get to antagonize the vegan you're flying with)
Heavy D - Rapper (word)

Don't you need to go flying or something? You definitely have to much time on your hands. It was funny though.

On a side note, have you flown with a Vegan? I have not seen a DAL CA yet that does not love dead animal. :D