Guide

How to use AeroSlate.

From your bid pack PDF to a ranked bid list. Start with how it works, then follow the steps or jump to any topic.

How it works

Set up once, bid every month.

Your Account holds your standing setup. Each month you upload that month's PDF and it comes back ranked through that setup. You view and fine-tune per package.

Account · set once
Profile (base · fleet · seat)Default strategyPreferencesConstraints + day availability
->
Every package
Upload the month's PDFIt ranks through your setupView + override per package
The order

Start to finish.

  1. 1
    Upload the month
    Upload -> drop the Delta PDF
  2. 2
    Set up your account once
    Account -> profile + strategy
  3. 3
    Open the package
    Packages -> your pack
  4. 4
    Read the dashboard
    Package -> Dashboard
  5. 5
    Refine and pick dates
    Pairings + Calendar
  6. 6
    Favorite and export
    Pairings -> Export

Uploading a bid pack

Delta onlyDelta packages supported today.
æ
Drag & drop your bid-pack PDF
or click to choose. .pdf only
What you're looking at

The Upload page: a drop zone for one PDF, with a Delta-only badge. AeroSlate reads the standard monthly bid package and scores every pairing in it.

What to do

Grab the monthly PDF from crew web and drop it here, or click to choose the file. Parsing runs on its own and usually finishes in 20 to 60 seconds.

What it means

One pack is one month. Re-uploading the same file opens the existing package instead of making a duplicate. Only Delta packages are supported today.

Already uploaded but the parser changed? Open the package and hit Reparse to re-run it without re-uploading.

Finding your way around

ATL320 JUN
Every package opens with these tabs. Set up applies from your Account.
What you're looking at

Every package opens to a hub with five tabs: Dashboard, Strategy, Pairings, Calendar, and Export. The top nav (Packages, Upload, Account) stays put across the whole site.

What to do

Pick a package from Packages, then move between its tabs. Dashboard is the overview, Pairings is your ranked list, Calendar finds trips by date, Strategy tunes the weights, Export saves your bid.

What it means

Two levels: your Account holds your standing setup (set once), and each package shows that setup applied to one month. You can override the strategy per package without changing your default.

Your pilot profile

Account->Profile
What you're looking at

The Profile section of your Account: base, fleet, seat, a commuter toggle with a home airport, and a list of congested airports.

What to do

Set base, fleet, and seat. Turn on Commuter and set your home airport if you commute. Add the airports you consider congested.

What it means

This is who the scorer thinks you are. Commuter status drives the commute score; congested airports raise the IRROPS upside score on trips that touch them. Set it once and it applies to every package.

Four ways to shape your list

Four controls shape what you see and in what order. The difference that trips people up: some only reorder the list, others remove trips from it. Reach for a strategy to change the overall ranking, a preference to float certain trips up without losing anything, a constraint to cut trips you will never bid, and day availability to block or favor specific dates.

StrategyRanksReorders the whole list. Nothing is removed.
PreferenceFloats upMatching trips rise. Never filtered out.
ConstraintRemovesTrips that fail your hard limits drop off.
Day availabilityRemoves or nudgesCan't-work removes; avoid/prefer nudge.

Strategies

A strategy is a lens. It weights the five sub-scores differently, so the same month ranks differently depending on what you care about. Nine presets ship in; you can also tune the weights yourself.

  • Balanced: an even mix of pay, lifestyle, and commute.
  • MaxPay: chase the highest credit and pay rate.
  • BestLifestyle: favor long layovers and fewer legs.
  • Commutable: favor trips that fit a commute.
  • LowFatigue: avoid redeyes and short rest.
  • HighIRROPS: reroute and pay-protection upside.
  • HighCreditLowTAFB: most credit per hour away from base.
  • AvoidEarlyReports: skip the dawn check-ins.
  • LayoverQuality: prioritize good layover cities and length.
Set a default strategy in Account. Override it per package from the Strategy tab, or tune the weights there and rescore.

Preferences

Preferences are soft boosts. A matching trip floats up the list; it never gets filtered out. Add the ones you care about and drag them into priority order. The priority-impact setting controls how steeply the boost falls off: Balanced keeps them nearly even, Ranked drops steadily by priority, and Focused lets the top preferences carry most of the weight.

Account->Preferences
  • Preferred layover window: boost trips whose layover length lands in your window.
  • Favorite cities: boost trips overnighting in cities you favor (set them in Layovers).
  • Preferred check-in window: boost trips that check in inside your time window.
  • Preferred release window: boost trips that release inside your time window.
  • Preferred per-duty report window: boost trips where every duty period reports inside your window.
  • Preferred per-duty release window: boost trips where every duty period releases inside your window.
  • Preferred legs per day: boost trips matching your target legs on first, enroute, and last days.
  • Preferred redeye: boost trips that match your redeye stance (prefer or avoid).
  • Average layover target: boost trips whose average layover sits near your target, within tolerance.
Preferences only change ordering, never what shows up.

Hard constraints

What you're looking at

The Hard constraints section of your Account: limits a trip must satisfy to stay in your list.

What to do

Set your hard limits. To see what got cut, flip Show excluded on the Pairings page; each excluded trip carries a chip explaining why.

What it means

This is the opposite of a preference. A constraint removes trips that do not qualify instead of just ranking them down. Use it for things you would never bid.

Day availability

June 2026
SUN
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14×
15
16
17
18
19
20★
21
22
23~
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
× Can't work~ Avoid★ PreferTap a day to cycle.
What you're looking at

A month calendar under Account -> Day availability where each day is marked can't work (red), avoid (amber), or prefer (green).

What to do

Tap a day to cycle its state. Can't-work is a hard block; avoid and prefer are soft.

What it means

Can't-work excludes any trip that occupies the day, including layover days. Avoid nudges those trips down; prefer nudges them up. It is both a remover and a nudger, depending on the color.

Reading the dashboard

Trips
1813
Avg credit
18:49
Avg layover
16h
Redeyes
173
What you're looking at

The shape of the whole month: stat tiles (trips, average credit, average layover, redeyes) over distribution charts for trip length, credit, time away, and overall score.

What to do

Scan the tiles for the lay of the land, then click any chart column to jump straight to the Pairings list filtered to that bin.

What it means

Start here to understand the month before you dig in. The best-of tiles point you at the standout trip in each category.

The pairings list

#4909FR
10:56
2-daySJC
Check-in
07:25
TAFB
35:37
CR/day
5:28
Breakdown
Overall
80.5
What you're looking at

Your ranked bid list. Each row shows the trip number, length, layover city, check-in, TAFB, credit per day, a breakdown bar, and the overall score.

What to do

Switch strategy or filter by trip length at the top. Read the breakdown bar to see which sub-scores carry a trip. Toggle Cards or Table view, and star trips to favorite them.

What it means

This is the heart of the product: every trip, sorted by your strategy and preferences. TAFB is time away from base; CR/day is credit per duty day. The taller a bar, the stronger that sub-score.

Reading a trip score

Open any trip for its full day-by-day breakdown. The overall score is a blend of five sub-scores, shown as the breakdown bar.

PayLifeCommFatgIrr
  • Pay: credit earned per hour worked and per duty day.
  • Life: how livable the trip is (redeyes, early reports, length).
  • Comm: how well it fits a commute (late check-in, early release).
  • Fatg: fatigue load (redeyes and legs per day).
  • Irr: exposure to congested airports for reroute and pay-protection upside.
Want the exact formulas? The Features page explains how each score is computed.

Calendar and trip finder

SUN
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
1
270
372
474
572
669
755
871
965
1063
1137★ #5785
1215
135
14
1572
1671
1779
1872
1963
2053
2154
2274
2376
2472
2574
2670
2765
2867
2970
3068
N trips start that day favorited trip spans those days
What you're looking at

The whole bid month laid out by day. Each day shows how many trips start on it; your day-availability colors and favorited trips show up here too.

What to do

Click a day to see trips that start then. Click and drag across days for a range, then choose whether to match trips that start within the range or are fully contained in it.

What it means

Use this when you care about dates first. Favorited trips appear as bars across the days they occupy, so you can see your month take shape.

Favorites and export

What you're looking at

A star on every trip, and an Export option on the package.

What to do

Star the trips you want from any list or the trip detail, then export your bid as PBS, CSV, or plain text.

What it means

Favorites are how you build your bid. Export turns it into the format your bidding system or spreadsheet needs.

Only Delta bid packages are supported today. Still stuck? See the FAQ or the glossary.