Originally Posted by
SkyGodKing
True, but how many people can consistently achieve two-leg day trips month after month for a significant part of their careers? While I'm not familiar with Delta's system, at AA, securing those day turns typically requires being in the top 10-15% at each base, which generally correlates with wide-body captain seniority. Everyone else on the narrowbody side is stuck with 3 or 4-day trips with multiple legs per day to satisfy the "optimizer" that came about because of the Average Calendar Day LOA.
Knowing what I know now, my question would be how long to top 1/3rd of a category at my desired base. I've found that having complete control over when I do and don't go to work, increases my QOL way more than what I fly or where I layover. The romantic notion of jet setting off the all these international destinations on heavy metal, loses it's appeal when you're on your 100th layover at one of the three destinations in which you get to layover. Then when you're there, you're walking around in a constant state of fatigue.
I'm not saying I'll never go back to WB, in fact, I'm considering it. But if I do, it's only because I'll be top 1/3rd in seat which means I'll have almost complete control again. It's certainly not for the destinations because nearly 90% of the time you're going to the same 3 destinations, none of which are all that great. The appeal is to hopefully fly very little to minimize damage that international ops does to my body (I do enough already lol).