Originally Posted by GhettoJet

"My assumption is that by the time you get to 65, you are senior enough to drop your whole schedule, pick up one or two premium trips and use sick time when needed."

That's an incorrect assumption at AA for the large majority of pilots. It may be true for some narrowbody pilots who hold high value turns, and some widebody FOs who can drop an FO trip and have someone who is holding an FB pairing trade into it but for the most part scheduling's use of red/redder only lets you swap (1) weekend flying for weekday flying, (2) holiday flying for non holiday flying, (3) lower time trips for higher time trips, and (4) shorter trips for longer ones.

Spirit's schedule flexibility is so far ahead of ours it's like comparing a regional contract (us) to a mainline contract (them).

Understand that the mindset here is to have every warm body on the property flying as close to FAR limits as possible, and APA negotiates contracts that enables such behavior by management.