If you want some time off...

1. Get your Short Calls early in the month. You may get a trip or two and move your RAW score into Bucket 2. If you don't get a few short calls out of the way early, you may find yourself in bucket 2 or 3 and still on short call.

2. Put your on call days early in the month. If you start reserve days early in the month, you have an earlier start on moving into Bucket 2. If you start late in the month, some pilots junior to you will already be in the second bucket.

3. Finish your on call days on Friday. This typically puts you in the largest Days of Availability grouping. Most pilots bid for weekends off. Sat and Sun are typically the lowest coverage days with M-F overstaffed. Friday is the most common end day, so more pilots are in your Days of Availability grouping.

4. All bets are off if the ALV is high and reserves aren't overstaffed. Low ALV results in line holders taking ALL of the open time that would normally go to long call reserves. This is especially the case with weekday trips, which further supports the previous point. With high ALV, line holders can't or won't take white slips, so long call reserves get used.