ZapBrannigan

This. Read it. Print it on a t-shirt. It is extremely difficult to REDUCE the amount of flying you are awarded without calling in sick.

flyguy81

You can try and trade off or give away trips or swap with company open time and make a gap. If you know what you’re doing it’s not too difficult.

Book your vacation. If it’s important and your CP isn’t a douche, they’ll pull a trip with no pay. Or you can just call in sick. Nobody harasses you here for calling in sick unless you’re blatantly abusing it…and even then you won’t get in trouble.

Lostboys97

We can ELITT our way down to zero trips?? With net zeros virtually non existent, I was under the impression we had to "exchange" trips.

I would also have to ask your seniority level, as what you describe is not a common theme.

hoover

I'm under 20% in base and with 2 weeks vacay and someone grabbing a 4 day from me, who even does that, I will work 5 days from Feb 10- April 22. And I picked up 2 of those days.
our vacation drops are great, but you have to use vacation to drop days and getting vacation in the summer or holidays isnt easy. I didnt with my senority this yr. Maybe next year when I'm under 10% in base?

Crockrocket95

I was able to use 1 week of vacation and a three day lead out to kill off 3 3 days and only have 1 three day at the end of the month remain. So if you have vacation you really reduce your flying. Although now im only crediting like 80 TFP for the month so ill have to ***** out and grab a trip at P to make it back. But it can be done.

Smooth at FL450

You can elitt down 4 duty periods. Then put what's left in TTGA and hope for the best. Some bases are easier to do this than others...

flyguy81

Depends if you bypass upgrade or not!

hoover

seriously! It's a topic of discussion at home almost daily.

at6d

1. I Was able to bid a line for March which had a large block of days off after the 25th.

2. Through ELITT (I was able to log in at go time on the 25th) somehow miraculously was able to move two trips to an earlier date. This resulted in a six day trip (two three days back to back) and then two days off before starting another. I drive two hours to base so one night used a hotel.

3. Had a nice three day which I was able to trade for another, again moving days to the left.

4. I was awarded vacation the first and third weeks of April. I bid to drop all trips that touched my vacation using CrewBid and maximized my days off. This resulted in being awarded a totally crap line because I didn’t care what it was—other than maximizing time off. I got my first choice.

5. Last two vacancy bids moved up my FO seniority in base 20 numbers. I’m at 23% in base on 7.4 years, will likely take an upgrade in summer.

Key points:

Yes, I will take a pay hit because my end result is low—will probably try to pick up one trip near the end of April if I really feel it.

Yes, it helps to have good trips to trade, which is a function of seniority.

Staggered vacation blocks can usually wipe out most of a month if you can take the pay hit. You may end up with 70 TFP like me, but I knew the plan and worked some extra to save.

I had a good spring break vacation block I traded into April. Having three weeks of vacation helps—I like to travel in the spring and October so those blocks are usually available for me.

You have to spend the time trying to trip trade or ELITT. Sometimes it can take more than a couple of trades to slowly work things out.

Im not a strong gamer when it comes to vacation, but I definitely will feel that time away is worth $$.

at6d

Turns out I bypassed my first bid. I’ll sit out this next one as well—who knows, maybe I can avoid an ETOPS lock by summer?