I left Frontier 9 years ago. Currently Atlas 747 Captain.
it’s true the flying between the two couldn’t be more different. It depends on what you want to do or where you want to be in X number of years. I’m just now getting ready for a flight after spending 3 days in Tokyo. I have absolutely no regrets leaving Frontier. I felt you work too hard for the money there. While our pay is not the best, we do get a lot of soft pay. So far this year I’ve only flown 175 hours. I enjoy generally only showing up for work once a month. I have two weeks of vacation this June. With our contract, we have the option of taking the entire month off. I already have the last week of May off. For July I plan on bidding the latter half of the month. So that will give me about 6-7 weeks off in a row while only using two weeks vacation. Can’t do that at Frontier. Do you have to put up with 17 days of work in a row here, absolutely. Personally I prefer 60 day lines as it breaks it up into 3 work periods over 60 days. Company is responsible for getting me back and forth to home. No crashpads. No passengers (generally). It was the right decision for me.
bottom line is that if your lifestyle can support 17 days away (or more) then Atlas is the better flying for sure. Not everyone can do that so some people would be happier at a LCC. Not me though.