Basically work your a$$ off for 8 months, especially in the summer, and if you planned properly you might get some time off.

apa website. Quicklinks, compass project, documents index, IMAX.

TLDR- Fly 90 hours a month. In FAR max months drop trips using PVDs, then pick up more trips. Essentially you trade next year's vacation to lower your IMAX to a point where you can get a few months off this year, with pay.
If you want to fly some low time months or bid reserve this strategy won't work for you.

Kinda/sorta. The key item is that you have to have a low credit month, then average over 90hrs for 6 months or so then have 2 huuuuge credit months (140 hours-ish), then when that low credit month drops off the 8 month average, you all of a sudden are IMAXed. There are ways to snowball it from there. The trick is the huge credit months that you either need to be senior/lucky enough for premium or vacation drop trips. So since the no float campaign, vacation dropping a trip isnt possible, so you mostly have to hope for premium, which if you’re junior, you ain’t gettin. So unless you can do that stuff, you won’t imax and will be limited to 90hrs a month avg. Some guys make it work... for some reason they never want to tell you how, they’d rather just call you stupid and tell you that you need to educate yourself without further elaboration, but they all essentially do the above.

Yup, let's just say the best IMAXers aren't exactly the kind of people that let life get in the way of their work.

I wouldn't be sad to see it negotiated away for literally anything else.

There is so much bad info being put out here IRT IMAX. Read the APA product on the Compass homepage.

I certainly wouldn’t want to give it away, but I think we can do much better. Admittedly, I don’t know what that would be, but I’m not big at all on limiting the masses on pay so the few that can make it work get time off. We could start with 200% premium, redo the OT process, re-evaluate OG/MU, pickup of POSTED trips within the footprint of a canceled sequence (double dip), etc. just spitballing. But even though I think IMAX isn’t ideal for the group, I’m not keen on giving it up unless we get something BETTER.

I did. That’s where about 99% of my post came from.

Sorry family, I know I've been working a ton these past 6 months, but if I really neglect you for the next 2 months I can get a month off with pay when you're in school and have work.

We've had a no-float campaign for 2 of the last 3 years. So now the best IMAXers will also be the crappiest union members as well...

I'm no IMAX expert, but one question- can 90% of pilots do this successfully?

I want a scheduling system that works well for the majority of the pilots, the majority of the time. Not one that works for the smartest/craftiest/hardest working/obsessed(pick your adjective) 10%.