I was hired at UAL about six months before you in '99 and was immediately hired at your present employer when furloughed by UA in '03.

Made the decision to return to UAL in '07 from the left seat of the bus. We all know what happened next.

As a total QOL pilot I'm totally happy with my decision to return to UA given the present circumstances at both companies in 2016 considering the relative pilot contracts (or lack thereof), fleets, flight ops culture (yes I typed that), expected retirements, and apparent mainline growth.

But in the end we won't know who made the better call until we both retire.

Who knows? If our airlines were to ever merge you would most likely end up far senior to the pilots that returned to the mothership.