Funny thing about trip construction and soft time (minimums, rigs, etc):
Every airline uses computers to generate trips. The program they use has one priority above all: minimize soft time. You can't take the trips you currently fly and make any kind of assumption than they'll stay the same, and you just get paid more. I guarantee it doesn't work like that.
As an example: At DAL, until relatively recently, there was only a duty period average of 5:15. That meant that 3 day trips that paid 10:30 were not only possible, but fairly common, and you got to appreciate a nice 30 hour layover somewhere.
The answer? Average Daily Guarentee. Every calendar day pays 5:15 (with some exception). We'll trade that bad old duty period average for a daily average and fixed the problem, right?
Well, sorta. The law of unintended consequences is always in effect.
Now the computer has a whole new set of restrictions to play with in order to minimize soft time...but the DPA has been deleted. So what's the computer to do? Ah ha! Multiple duty periods in a calendar day!
Report early, one leg. 12 hour "day over". Red eye back. 12 hour day over, late departure to west time zone, 12 hour layover. Wash, rinse, repeat. 4 day trip with 5 duty periods that would have paid 26:15 hours now pays 21.
Point is every change has a consequence, and you can't use the current trips as any kind of guide.
Nu