On weekends, Pitman and DuPont tie. Averaged over every possible crew alignment, both give 14.9 full weekends off in 2026, and both carry the same catch: each cycle divides evenly into weeks, so your actual number is fixed by where your crew sits and never changes all year. Pitman crews land on 26 or 0. DuPont crews land on 26, 13, or 0. If weekends were the whole story, this comparison would be a coin flip.
They are very different schedules to live, though. We make Lumical, a roster scanner, so read this with that in mind. The numbers below are plain calendar math you can poke at in our free shift pattern visualizer.
What each cycle looks like
Pitman, also called Panama or 2-2-3, is a 14-day cycle: 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off, always in 12-hour shifts and always the same shift type. Day crews stay on days, night crews on nights. You never work more than three in a row, and every other week ends with a Friday to Sunday break.
DuPont packs both shift types into one 28-day cycle: 4 nights, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, then 7 straight days off. Same 42-hour nominal average, very different rhythm.
What DuPont trades
The 7-day break is DuPont’s headline and it is real: a full week off every 28 days without touching your leave. The price is paid in the middle of the cycle. You work three day shifts, get one single day off, and go straight into three nights. One week of every cycle holds 72 working hours. And because each cycle has two night blocks, the first off day after each one is a recovery day you mostly sleep through: about 26 of them across 2026.
What Pitman trades
Pitman never mixes shift types, so there are no day-to-night flips. A day crew logs zero recovery days in 2026, weeks alternate between 36 and 48 hours, and the longest run is three shifts. What you give up is the long break. Pitman’s longest off-block is three days, there is no 7-day reset, and if your crew drew a zero-weekend alignment, that is your whole year. Check yours on the 2-2-3 calendar for 2026.
Pitman nights deserve their own warning: a Friday night ends Saturday morning, so night crews average just 3.7 full weekends in 2026. The Friday night rule explains why.
The honest verdict
Neither wins. They trade different things.
| Pitman | DuPont | |
|---|---|---|
| Cycle | 14 days | 28 days |
| Shift type | Fixed, days or nights | Days and nights mixed |
| Longest run | 3 shifts | 4 shifts |
| Longest break | 3 days | 7 days |
| Hardest week | 48 hours | 72 hours |
| Recovery days in 2026 | 0 on days, about 78 on nights | About 26 |
| Full weekends off in 2026 | 26 or 0 by alignment (14.9 average) | 26, 13, or 0 by alignment (14.9 average) |
Pick DuPont if the week-long break is worth the transitions to you. Pick Pitman if a steady body clock and short runs matter more. And if your partner runs one rotation while you run the other, our free days off together tool takes both patterns and shows the days you actually share. The DuPont calendar for 2026 covers the year in full.
Where Lumical fits
Either schedule is regular enough to chart once on paper or in a spreadsheet and trust all year. The app matters when the roster stops matching the template: swaps, overtime, and a DuPont grid photographed off the break-room wall. Lumical reads the photo and files every shift, day or night, on the correct calendar days, with a review step before anything saves.
Weighing these rotations because a new job offered you one? Get Lumical on the App Store and it will keep whichever schedule you pick straight in your calendar.