That's the beauty of working at an international airline. Even though I had reasonable seniority as a Bus F/O, the flying slowly deteriorated to the point that it just became too much work. Too much time away, too many long sits in IAH and ORD, too many swaps, too many embedded red-eyes, etc. And the pay credit per trip stunk, at least at my seniority.

The right seat of the 777 is fantastic. Want to fly? Bid a line and go. Want to work on the boat or hang with the dog? Bid reserve.

There was a significant chunk of my career when I likely would have been better off at SWA, but that was long ago. The industry has matured and changed quite a bit since then.