Originally Posted by nene

Living in a base is the major driver (IMO after reading your comments) and probably a great driver of your decision. Two things to consider though that you did not address if your were willing to move to a DL base:

Variety: Over a 20yr career at DL you can fly as an FO to the 'villes for awhile, then you can bid WB B flying and spend some time exploring each of the major cities in Europe/SA/Asia, then you can bid back to NB A and re-explore the good ole USA and nearby countries, and lastly you can go back to WB A. Anyway, over the course of a career there is an opportunity to keep it all fresh. If your thing is to never leave east/west of the Mississippi, you can engineer that. If your thing is to never go to work and bid reserve WB B and mostly stay home, you can engineer that. Best of all, you can upgrade earlier just because of the wide varieties of opportunities and positions dilutes the amount of pilots on accepting first available upgrade (or ever upgrading). You didn't state your age, so if you only have a few years left, then perhaps a career flying the mighty 737 around the US will not get old.

Lastly, you claim you "didn't feel like a good fit", well I have friends at all the airlines that I served with in the Navy and the airlines are waaaaay more similar than different. At the end of the day, if you can get along with others generally then you'll fit in for a few days with any crew. If you find that everyone else is an arse, well often you have to look inward to find the common denominator...

Best of luck on your new career!