Culture is dead unless you work in the puzzle palace and have all the time in the world to go mainline koolaid at the next deck party. Try paying your mortgage with culture and lemme know how that works out. Go wherever you're gonna have the best seniority as fast as possible. hint: that ain't southwest, especially with the max debacle.

The only downsides I can see to AA is the debt on their books and PBS. They have enough retirements that you'll be moving up quickly and out of the furlough zone relatively rapidly. Faster upgrade, bigger airplanes.

All things being equal, you'll do fine either place. I'm proud of where I work, but only inasmuch as it took me a ton of hard work for a decade and a half to get there. I don't really care who I work for as long as the checks don't bounce and they don't call me on my days off.