Who’s to say who made the right decision? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You can’t fault anyone for coming here or not, staying or leaving. We’re not drones pumped out of a factory. We all have our own needs and most of us go to where we can meet those needs. At the end of the day, this is just a job and you can’t deny that doing this job from where you live is way easier than commuting across country for it.

For the OP, go ask this same question over on the JB boards, you’ll get the same 50/50 responses. There’s dog****** hidden in every contract. I too have a buddy at JB asking about AS because he wants to come west. As av8or said, look at a contract comparison and decide if it’s worth the commute. Upgrades were running at 4 yrs 11 months, but now that the base bidding is open to all you can probably add a couple of yrs to that. We’re apparently hiring for the rest of the year but unless something changes, it just for attrition with no measurable growth. But as you know, things change rapidly in this industry so who knows what will happen in the next year. Good luck.