Is it possible to average about 18 days off per month flying the 320?
Thank you so much!

Possible, but depends on base trip mix and your seniority.

In NYC, there are couple of 5 day trips paying 33'ish hours....two would be 66. Then pick up a normal two day trip worth 10:30 and you are at 76 hours.

Or if you live local and can load up on the one day trips that pay 6/per day, you get 12 of those for 72 hours.

Sure. Bid LCA trips. A lot of junior guys get trips bought for IOE.

If you are a commuter, you need to decide if you count commute only days as days off. Very few trips in NYC are commutable on both ends for those who fly in right now. There used to be in the pre-optimizer days but its been awhile. If you do an uncommutable 5 days with commutes on either side, those days will add up. It's one of the things that drives seniority so low in NYC. If you can drive to get in position or are actually local, you can definitely work it to get 18 off a month.

Living in base as well. If you commute you will loose at least 1 day maybe 2 on the front or back end.

yup … get a normal schedule and drop a trip.
3x 4-day trips is a pleasant schedule and pays 63-65 hours

How easy is dropping trips at DL?

If reserve coverage is good it’s automatic. Problem is, that situation is super rare these days, so you need folks to want your trips. It is pretty easy to drop good short trips on weekdays. It gets progressively harder as trips get longer and less desirable all the way to almost impossible for crappy weekend trips.

Scoop

if you drop it as soon as possible (on the first schedule change run on the 20th), pretty easy. I dropped a five day weekend trip in mid December by doing this.

If life changes and you’re trying to drop it 3 days before? Virtually unheard of in most categories.

Varies from month to month and category to category. On a previous NB, I couldn't drop much, but could occasionally give stuff away. On the 330, I dropped my entire schedule every month I bid a line because we always had coverage. That was pre-rona and coverage isn't as good on that category right now. Even if there isn't coverage there are options to give trips away. Doesn't always work but it's a nice option.