Originally Posted by Proximity

I'm a person who utilizes long periods of days off. This month I have 11 days off in a row, and next month I've managed so far to get 16 days off in a row. If a trip appears in ELITT where I can move something to the end of the month (should happen eventually), I'll have even more off.

When bidding a line, you'll want to either avoid 4 days, OR bid an all four day line. An all four day line, especially on the blanks, can already have 10 days off.

When using ELITT, the best thing will be to get yourself away from red days ASAP and then try put two three days together, the first Thu-Sat and the second Sun-Mon. Weekday trips go very quick in ELITT, but if you watch the alerts it's possible. If you are super fast and/or lucky, you can drop duty periods in ELITT.

Other tools you'll have available are TTGA (trade or give away trips to other pilots), monthly overlap (get duty periods dropped when trips overlap month-to-month), vacation (should be able to turn one week into 21 days off, but won't get your full vacation until you've been here a full calendar year), training bid (could get two trips dropped without pay going forward) and finally sick time, if not having ten days off in block causes you to not feel fit to fly. Just don't post pics from your boat, especially as an FO.

It would be in your best interest once through training to read the SWAPA Scheduling Handbook thoroughly, and then look at the trip construction and execution parts of the contract.