Originally Posted by
MinRest
It is harder to drop at AS, but we have some folks who do that. Nobody is jealous of NJA vacation at any of the airlines I know, as this is all very doable to get long chunks of time off, and it's even possible without using sick time, dropping below min guarantee, or using vacation.
The ability to drop isn't unlimited. You can post trips to drop and if others pick them up you're taken off the trip with a loss of pay or you can use vacation bank hours. So it's related to seniority - junior guys don't have the great trips while senior guys do. The senior guys can bid trips that they aren't interested in flying. Eg TGU - a lot of guys didn't want to fly a month of them but enjoyed doing 1 or 2 a month. I bid TGU and posted the weekend trips I didn't want and when those were taken I posted the mid week trips I didn't want. Instant 11 days off in the middle of the month. The nice part is you can do the posting, and trading, once the next month's flying is finalized which happens before open trip trading starts.