Originally Posted by
Regionalsuck
Personally if it was me and I was dead set on PHX living. I’d pick SWA if you are military and can get hired because it’s a more stable long term base there. Who knows what AA does in PHX long term. Closing or shrinking will always be a threat in the back of your mind there IMO.
Commuting is absolutely miserable vs living in base. It is not worth hardly any amount of money or widebody to commute long term for the rest of your career.
After a decade of commuting vs now living in base you cannot even compare the QOL difference if you value your kids/family. 30-40 extra hours a month riding in the back of an airplane “if” you can even get on. Which that keeps getting worse and worse every year. (That is a full extra work week a month for normal people). Countless nights in hotels or crashpads living like a homeless rat instead of just driving home because of commuting on days off for early starts/late finishes, reserve, Delayed flights, jumpseat competition, lazy gate agents, maintenance problems, weather, cancelled flights. Extremely long days 16-22 hours+ sometimes trying to drive to airport early, wait for flight, end up on backup flight 3 hours later, then sit on 2-5 hour flight, deplane with rifraff after 30 minutes of them dilly dallying around... all before you even start to work full long 12 hour day. The added stress is unreal.
I will concede that, of course, living in base is better. But “absolutely miserable” and “unreal stress” are a bit over the top, at least from my limited experience commuting. Stress wise, compared to my Air Force jobs, I’ll say that I’m happier (and less stressed out) driving to the airport to commute out for a 4 day trip, than I ever was driving to my Air Force job on a Monday morning.
Depending on your commute, you might not ever need hotels or crashpads. Commuting at AA, one can reserve the jump seat, which dramatically reduces stress. Additionally, depending on base and equipment, there are trips that start late and end early (which as I understand it, is not the case with a SWA. I could easily never have to use a hotel or crash pad in my current status (I choose to though sometimes, to knock out back to back trips).
Bottom line for the OP, I wouldn’t choose SWA just because PHX could someday close as an AA base. But I wouldn’t be inclined to choose SWA anyway, so I might be biased.