Good to know...thanks much.

I know it's been asked before but does that 17,500 include what delta puts in? Or our own contribution. Thanks

And on crash pads. Do any have private rooms? The hotel thing seems pricey. I am planning to drive down after Indoc. Are they regular crew pads or mostly people in training.

$17,500 is your personal contribution limit. The 15% DC contribution from delta is separate.

The 2 and 5 are for non contract employees. Pilots get a flat 15 percent. You are not required to contribute to get the 15.

To roughly clarify without looking anything up, the IRS 415c limit is $52000 for the retirement plan. If you are over 50, you can add a $5000 catch up contribution to that for a total of $57k (this extra $5k isn't accounted for in the explanation below).

Your personal pretax limit on what you can contribute is $17500 towards the $52k limit...
DAL does a 15% contribution which is separate and independent of what you contribute...except the grand total of yours and theirs has to come in under the 415c limit of $52k.

If you do the math, to max out your 401 to the 415c limit, you would make your full 17500 contribution and the company would max out their share ($34500) if you made more than $230k+/-

That is about as simplified as I can get...there are other issues if you make more, but in those cases, you should max out your pretax contribution earlier in the year.

How is per diem calculated for trips?

Is this all one account that DAL and personal pretax dollars go into and imagine you can choose options on how it is invested?

You are paid the hourly rate from sign in to release at the end of the trip. Company pays for hotels.

Scambo's explanation was much better than mine.

The company DC money and your contributions both end up in a Fidelity account which has a ton of options for how you want to invest. You also have the option of making Roth contributions which are post tax. Some guys will go that route so they will have both pre/post tax $ available in retirement. Everyone's situation is different and a lot depends on your personal view of where tax rates will be in the future vs your likely tax bracket, etc.

Yes it is, and yes you can.