This, in a nutshell, is why I stopped commuting by air. Well, that and SW opening a domicile that I can drive to.
I do PMs exclusively. I've got a 3 to 5(!) hour drive going to work, and 2:35-2:40 going home (late at night). It is
exponentially better than commuting beyond driving distance on an airplane, which I did for over a decade, but it still sucks. I try to put trips together every month, typically into 2, 6 day blocks, which also sucks, but not as much as the 12+ hours of driving that I'd be doing otherwise.
After living in my town for almost 31 years, and 17 years of doing the drive, we are planning a move closer to a domicile.
Between the traffic, (mostly caused by the completely unfettered home building without adding
any road volume nearly the entire way to and from work), erosion of line quality/flexibility, it's become an untenable situation. And I am pretty senior. I can't imagine trying to do what I do as a junior guy. I spend FAR too much time on ELITT and TTGA trying to trade
weekdays for weekends or partial weekends to block my trips together. You'd think that would be a cakewalk, and it used to be. Apparently, folks love flying on weekends nowadays.
The traffic has gotten so bad here that I've started driving up the night before and do the hotel thing if I have a reports before 1300 (which puts me leaving during the AM rush hour). SO much less stressful than playing pole position for 3-4 hours before working a full day.
Unless we go back to our old manning levels, forget about premium time etc., unless you can snag the last minute stuff, which you can't do 3-4 hours away.