Originally Posted by Sunvox

Yeah. In all honesty if 30 years ago I understood what it meant to be a pilot in terms of years spent working night hours and holidays I would have picked a different career. I'm glad I made it to where I am and today I wouldn't trade my job for any other, but those intervening years were a hard price to pay. If it hadn't been for my wife being employed and being able to drop trips for many years I don't think I would have survived. Everybody who is junior and doing red-eyes and holidays has my utmost of sympathy. Being junior stinks!

I will say - I lived on the west coast for a while and was SFO based doing JFK red-eyes where the all night flight was the flight out followed by a late return the next day. If I had to chose then that would most definitely be my preferred red-eye. I know it's not fair to the west coast guys, but I wish they would push all that stuff to LAX and SFO.