Pairing Summaries
PBS and Scheduling Tools
IR Cloud Tops
Rotation Format Translator
Create e-mail and Teams chat from the rotation:
Tricks to using the FMST
HTML Flash Card creator
Weather Report
ForeFlight KML stuff
ALPA tools
contentsI am immediately taking down my AE and seniority analysis. September will be the last month that I do my pairings summaries.
I plan on keeping the reserve calculator and line simulator.
Why I am doing this
Delta revised the IT policy on 7/10/2023 and has emphasized and expanded this policy as of 7/30/2026.Link to article on DeltaNetWhere to get AE and seniority information
The main source of AE and seniority information is from Delta's Crew Resources and Scheduling page. My analysis started when the lists and AE results were only published as a pdf of a plain text report. Delta has started publishing the results in Excel several years ago, which was a big step foreward. However, there are a couple of extra steps that are needed to make this data useful, :
- Produce the projected category list after the AE award. Even better yet would be to produce an enhanced seniority list which would be updated with each AE. The enhanced seniority list would add columns for things like: latest awarded category, expected training date, expected conversion date, etc. Since the list is in Excel instead of just PDF, it is easy to filter or sort the list as desired to create a category list.
- Add a formula to the top row to show how many pilots show after a filter is applied. Here is the formula: =subtotal(103,A:A) - the number of header rows.
- Publish the lists so that when someone applies a filter, the filtered results do not appear for the next person. I used the "embed" feature.
ALPA has a pilot dashboard that provides a way of looking at seniority projections: Delta ALPA Pilot DashboardPairings information for swaps
PBS offers pairings search. However, the pairings data and search is no longer available once the PBS data is switched over to CQ bidding.I occasionally do blind swaps where I will try to swap a trip with a trip that is not in open time. The idea is that I can snag the swap should one of the desired trips enter open time. Trying to find desired trips on a given day by looking through the bid package is difficult. However, there is a feature in the Composite report that is not well known that can help. At the top of the Composite report, there is a navigation bar with links for "REASONS ROSTER PAIRINGS". The Pairings section of the report list every awarded pairing. You can click on the header to sort any column. Although the Pairings report does not have the full pairing, it lists things like report, check-out, and layovers.Ideally, I would like Delta to adopt something similar to my pairings summaries when they publish the bid packages. I would be happy to help and they are welcome to any code that I have already created. I started these at the time of the NWA merger and think that Delta could potentially improve upon my work.
September 2026 will be my final month. See my explanation at the top of this page.
Note that the above link will require you to sign into Deltanet and the files are not available publicly. While I am flattered by the fact that many people find these useful, I would highly encourage that you learn about the analysis tool in the PBS Web App. More details are available in the PBS Gouge or the YouTube videos produced by the PBS Committee. Both are linked from http://pbshelp.info/delta
. contentsJohn Bell's PBS Guide
While not a full PBS manual, I have put together some of the things that I wish more pilots knew about using PBS.
John Bell's guide to PBS John Bell's guide to PBS for EasyBid Users
contentsFAR 117 calculator in Excel.
This uses a copy and paste of the pairings from iCrew to calculate some of the FAR 117 cumulative parameters. This depends on macros, so you must download the file to a computer and run it in Excel.
Mac: You should get a prompt asking if you want to enable Macros. Enable them.
Windows: Microsoft added a new (and annoying) secuity feature that blocks unsigned macros. Before you use the file, right click on the file and select "properties". Click on the box to unblock the content. Here is a picture: picture
FAR 117 calculator in ExcelReserve Pay Calculator (updated 3/1/2023 for new PWA):
HTML version of the Reserve Pay Calculator optimized for the iPad. note: This should work on any computer.
Excel version of the Reserve Pay Excel Spreadsheet Use it interactively in your browser or download it for offline use. The download icon is in the bottom right corner of the frame.
Reserve Line Simulator
Online version of PBS Reserve simulatoriPad notes:
- If you have Office 365 with Excel on your iPad: Use the normal link. Use the square with an arrow comming out icon near the URL window to send the file to Excel.
- If you do not have OneDrive or Office 365: Use the "online" link. This should work in Safari. However, selecting cells with pull down menus such as the month can be problematic. I find the trick is to do a double tap, but continue to hold your finger down on the second tap until the menu appears.
- If you have OneDrive installed, but do not have Office 365: I have not found a good solution other than to find another device or computer.
Rotation Pay Calculator (LCA Block and Minutes Under Extract)
This started as a way for standards pilots to extract the block plus minutes under for each leg. While I developed it a little beyond that point, the analysis just uses information within the rotation and is not sophisticated enough to determine if DBMS is making the calculations correctly.Rotation Pay CalculatorLeg Extract from iCrew Rotations
This allows you to paste an iCrew rotation and then will extract the basic items such as block time. The initial purpose was to allow line check airman to track their line check time by filtering for "L" legs, but it can be used for total block.Important note: Excel "thinks" in days. For example, even if Excel shows 72:00, it is "thinking" 3 days. If you want to make any pay calculations based on the totals, multiply by 24.iCrew Legs Import spreadsheetTurn Extract
This extracts the turns, legs, or layovers for a given city at the start or end of the pairings. It is an iOS Shortcut and runs on the iPad.
Updated 3/9/2025
Summary:contentsI find that civilians such as family members have a hard time reading the rotation. This is a quick way to extract the legs and hotel information into a readable format with local times. You can then e-mail or otherwise share your rotation.
I have some other functions for the pilot version:
- Translate into printable format: This cleans up the rotation for printing. I used to like to print a copy of the pairing and put it in my front pocket. I now mostly use MiCrew, but this is for those of you who are old school.
- Extract legs: This extracts the legs. iCrew now offers similar functionality, but I already have this programmed so I am leaving it up.
- AeroWeather Pro link: This creates a group in AeroWeather Pro (you must have the pro version) consisting of the airports in the rotation.
- Aviationweather.gov link:
Aviationweather.gov has a cool feature called a TAF table which lists the TAF by columns. This takes the the airports in the rotation and makes a TAF table.
contents contentsWith the html flight plan going away and extracting data from the Mission+ using ios Shortcuts to analyze Mission+ data prohibited, I have a page that offers some featues from the html flight plan. Due to the need to manually enter the data that I am restricted from accessing from Mission+, it is clunky. However, you may still find it usable for international flights.
- Times section (manual input with no waypoint times)
- Break calculator
- Calculators from the html flight plan
- Count down timer
- Link creator for Aviationweather.gov and AeroWeather Pro
- Email to the flight attendants of the Times section
- Text to paste into Flight Family with the times info
Direct link to page:
You can directly access the tool with the link below. However, I have also created the tool as an iOS shortcut.
iOS shortcut for offline storage on your iPad
An easy way to get this file on your iPad is by structuring it as an iOS shortcut. You can access it from the share menu of Mission+ just like Delta's QuickFlight+ or the previous shortcuts. However, this shortcut does not use Mission+ data. You could actually share from any file. The shortcut is just used as a way to store and access the page for offline use.
The idea is to load the page from a previous flight or even another unrelated file to open the page. Enter the data manually as desired. When the actual flight is available in Mission+, go to the page in Edge to enter the time information instad of using the shortcut.
link to load iOS Shortcut for Manual Entry Flight Plan Times
To use the shortcut, tap on the three vertical dots on a flight in the Flight Manager (list of flights) in Mission+, select "Share", then choose "Manual Entry Flight Plan Times." Note that you could also hold down on any file or e-mail attachment to get the "Share" option since this does not use an Mission+ data.
Delta has Cloud Tops in the iOS version of the weather viewer. I think this is a big deal that not a lot of pilots know about. This is especially a big deal where there is no radar coverage. I have brief overview:
contentscontentsThis creates e-mail and Teams links from an iCrew rotation:
Delta has an FMS simulator on the iPad for various fleets. I put together some usage tips based on my use of the A330 FMST.contentsLink to the document on my Delta OneDrive
I have an Excel workbook that allows you to create flash cards in an html format. I have an example below of for 330 Memory and Limitations, but you can create flash cards for any aircraft. The Excel file is used to generate an html file that is used for quizing.
Example of the output: 330 html flash cards
Example of the Excel file used to create the 330 example.
The easiest way to use this on your iPad is to use the resulting html file like an html flight plan file:
1. You must download the file and use it in Excel. I have not tried this in the Mac version. You may need to do it in the Windows version.
2. Create the html file using Excel.
3. Email the html file to yourself.
4. Save these to a folder in the files app.
5. Open the file into Microsoft Edge by using share to Edge.
contentsAviationweather.gov Impact Board
I used to have a weather report that I created by extracting data from NOAA's aviationweather.gov site. However, NOAA updated and improved their site which broke my script. Since my report was experimental and for demonstration, I am not sure if I will update it. My favorite part of the aviationweather.gov was the TAFF board. This is now called the Impact Board. You can enter a list of airports and press "Load". Note that when you follow the hyperlink to an individual airport, there is now a switch on the page to show the crosswinds for each runway. Some airports lack the runway data and will return an error, but this is a very nice feature.
contentsClicking on one of the links for the files below will cause Safari to prompt you to download the file to your iPad. After downloading, open the file from the Files app. After opening these files, use the share icon (box with an arrow coming out) to share with ForeFlight. Once imported into ForeFlight, you can use these as an overlay in the map display.
The basic version is to add a rough lat long grid to the globe view. I have lines of parallel for arctic circle, equator, as well as 30 and 60 degrees. I have longitude lines in 30 degree increments.
The more detailed version gives a 1 degree lat lon grid. This is not for viewing, but to facilitate using the ForeFlight annotation tool to draw things like turbulence reports. I have added thicker lines at 5, 10, and 30 degree increments. You can turn the layer on to draw and then turn it off after you have drawn the area. ForeFlight video tutorial on annotating the map.
The purpose in this project is to give a way of drawing turbulence areas when WiFi is unavailable to populate the Flight Weather Viewer. If you do not have the ForeFlight link from using my page to translate the flight plan, you can still import the route from the official html flight plan. Type in the origin, space, paste the route from the Jepp FD Routing in the Route Extract section, space, type in the destination.
This is an Excel spreadsheet that allows you to take a list of waypoints and turn them into a kml file that can be imported into ForeFlight.
contentsThese files search the RPH and Master Pairings files.
contentsThis assumes that you have an accurate fuel flow in gal/hr. It uses the GPS in the phone to calculate data points of speed, fuel flow, and mpg so they can be pasted into a spreadsheet.
Experimental direct link to June 2024 All Category pairing summary.