Absolutely.

Don't let your desire to live where you think you want to live for the rest of your life cloud your judgement WRT earnings and QOL over a 40(!) year career.

SW is, has always been and will likely always be a somewhat glorified regional, although that line has blurred significantly in the last few years and not because our situation got any better.

Comparing a career here vs. a legacy is apples and oranges.

Yes, we'll probably do OK on this contract, but it is very unlikely that we will ever offer anywhere close to the same career/retirement earnings and QOL of a legacy, when viewed in the long term.

I am near the top of the food chain, seniority wise, and I am flying significantly worse schedules at SW today than when I got hired nearly 3 decades ago, heck, even a decade ago.

It's unlikely to get significantly better, and that's assuming we don't go the way of Pan Am, TWA, Braniff, Eastern etc., which, nowadays, doesn't seem as far fetched as it did a decade ago. Having worked directly and indirectly for 3 out of 4 of those, I can say without hesitation that some of the stuff that's been happening the last few years feels eerily similar.

Yeah, our balance sheet is strong now, but how many more $1b meltdowns can that endure? 6 months after the latest one, they've done little to nothing to prevent it from happening again. In fact, after seeing that they've removed nearly 900, (otherwise available to work) pilot's from the June sched by moving their training into June(!) (which leaves, potentially, close to 4000 days of now uncovered flying), it almost seems as if they're intentionally trying to cause another epic meltdown, and that's just one example.

The differences between being junior and senior at SW are, in a nutshell:

Seat/domicile choice.

More variety when getting to choose which/how many days you get pummeled by the sodomizer.

Vacation bidding (although "we" voted to remove 60% of a senior pilot's first round vacation choice, which will further dilute the few benefits we get by being senior at SW if and when it gets implemented).

Oh, and as a senior pilot, you will be in a better position to pick up open time. That's a good thing, since you'll have to pick up more and more days of flying if you want to keep up with your contemporaries at DAL as you, and they, get more senior.

Our scheduling flexibility, which is actually pretty good, also allows a senior pilot to minimize their exposure to the vortex, or to go all in and make bank. Either will cost you, one way or another.

All this could and will likely change in the future, but I wouldn't bet too much on it.