No brainer. Drive to work. Even two hours. Even FOUR hours.

The money will be fine at both places, and while the 73 will get boring quickly, there is definitely something to be said about never being more than a few times zones off. Does that benefit outweigh the benefits of long haul flying? That's usually up to the individual to determine.

The financial thing is a wash. Yes swa has much better Financials but every airline is one noshobojo away from financial ruin. It's the nature of capital intensive industries.

The biggest thing is driving to work though, and it's the only trump card in here, even considering long call. Your car will never cancel, will never be full, and with the exception of the MCO employee lot, will never push without you.

Yes, it might suck to wake up at 2-3 am and drive to a 10 hour day, or work that same day and drive home at 2am, but those factors are only compounded by commuting. Now, if you're 15 minutes from a podunk airport that will get you to MIA/CLT with one flight, that might change the equation slightly, but even then you still have the other issues I listed, along with the fact that small city commutes always run the risk of having their schedules cut.

It would suck to go into a 30 year career thinking you have 5 commute options per day and then having that cut to 1 or 2 flights a day and being stuck with that. The chances of that happening are exponentially higher than a base (swa or aa) closing.