If it's new to you, it will be initial qual. Everything you need to know is in the FOM and the military leave guide on deltanet. Cheers and hurry back home safe.

I have re-read the mil guide and its quite helpful WRT to benefits and timing your return. As for training my gameplan is to call CPO and training training folks about 6 weeks out to sched requal training. I think timing it to return in the last half of the month is ideal for pay purposes since you will get your advance flight pay for the next month. I will try and overlap that with the leave accrued from mil duties to minimize the trough in pay between jobs.

Thanks. I hadn't thought about that yet. I looked at the mil guide, but I haven't studied it closely enough yet.

You need to give 30 day written notice for your return, per the law. Then, on day 31 you are back in the payroll, with or without training on day 31. Some time after day 31, usually fairly quickly since they are paying you, you will see your training get scheduled.

If you are on Orders for 30-179 days, you have 14 days from your order end date to apply for re-employment. If it is 180+, you have 90 days from end of order. The 30 days from your notification of return is only for pay purposes...but not required by USERRA to be 30 days before your orders end.

I hope I'm reading both USERRA and the mil leave guide correctly...this is my first time out as well.

I think this is INCORRECT. The law does not say 30 days, but the contract may state that (not a Bid D pilot). My contract has a 30 day notice, but the lawyer I discussed this with said the contract cannot be more restrictive than the law. So consider it a suggestion from Delta Management.

P.S. A good friend is a Delta pilot, and Mgt was pressuring him….until the law was presented to them.

Thread Bump to see if anyone knows:

1. I'm returning from 10 months of mil leave this summer before my original new hire seat lock (24 months) would have expired. Can I return to a new category? Or will my original seat lock prevent that?

2. If I'm going to a new category, would DAL send me to SRQ for my original category (followed by the line) until I can begin initial qual on the new category? Curious if anyone knows stories of this happening.

1. You still have your seat lock. You can always bid captain. But then you need to have the hours to upgrade.

2. The only scenario would be left seat upgrade. If you have the hours you will go into training for the seat. If not, you will go back to your old seat until you get the hours.

You can return to any aircraft you would have been eligible to bid had you not taken leave. A new hire seat lock can be a 1 or 2 year lock depending on a base change and what you can hold in the new base.

correct, that is the easiest way to look at it. Thanks for the assist. I have done it a bunch and you learn something new about the process every time. Vacation being the big one I learned about last time.