I am just shocked that some people don't get it. I try to be as transparent as possible with new hires or potential applicants on these forums: only reason to be here are day trips. That also means: never ever ever try to commute for any extended period of time. If you're gonna commute for the foreseeable why not go somewhere that actually pays more, or at least, has commutable schedules.

I was overly snarky in my response, but you are absolutely about the mass exodus that never happened because a large percentage of our pilots have had the good life of not commuting or staying in hotels and don't want to envision a future without it. Now Margi will tell us that we over value these things and he's probably right. There's probably a lot of us that once we rip off the band aid and have a more traditional 121 passenger schedule we'd get used to it and it wouldn't be the living hell that we have created in our minds - that is absolutely possible if not probable.

But most of us will never rip off that band aid, even though many that have ripped it off, couldn't imagine NOT having done it - I'm looking at you Margi. But now we can just go down the rabbit hole of human psychology, our inherent fear of risk and catastraphozing professional downturns that are cyclical and repetitive.