At my previous carrier we had a guy who absolutely believed everyone's motivation for doing anything had to be the same as his. In discussions on fitness, his only thought in staying lean and fit was to chase tail, so therefore that must be what my primary motivation must be. Nothing could be further from the truth. Same was true of career motivations, the things that he found important obviously must be what everyone found important; again nothing could be further from the truth. Some of your approach to this reminds me of that. What motivation you have for your career is great for you, but not everybody has those same motivations.

For me, I had a 30 year career, but I was burned out, flying redeye after redeye, and I couldn't keep doing it. It was detrimental to my health, both physically and mentally. So I did a lot of napkin math, made sure I could retire, and did...then I found out retirement when your wife is still working full time is far less about travel, scuba diving, skiing, going on adventures, and more about sitting around bored to tears, watching YouTube, and feeding our cats. After almost a year, it was time for me to start feeling productive again.

As you said, I could have written my ticket at AA, DL, SW, UA, but I didn't want to. I've done 16 years flying at a major, 11 years doing mostly transcon redeyes. That doesn't interest me anymore. Most guys want to fly for the majors and get into the heavy iron, fly over water for 13 hours at a time, "see the world." The A321 was the biggest plane I've flown and it's bigger than anything I ever wanted to fly. I enjoyed my 6 years on the E190 a lot more, and of that, most of what I liked was short hops up and down the west coast from LGB. So this type of flying, coupled with the almost 12 years I spent at Eagle before it was "Envoy," and the offer of coming back as a DEC with credit for my years in the industry, was enough to bring me out of retirement.

I fully get all of my friends who flowed through to AA, plus those who still work at JB, or moved onto other majors, will hear I've come back to Envoy and ask what I'm thinking, but what they think doesn't matter, only that this is where I wanted to go. I think with all of the other gray hair in the room yesterday, there are others who know things aren't the wonderland the majors are made out to be, and starting off back here as a DEC is a pretty good deal to us. Lots of people won't get it, but that's ok.