A buddy of mine who happens to fly 777s on trips like you describe is the first to admit that his job is easier than mine flying 4-6 legs per day up down the east coast. He barely stays current with landings.

I begrudge him nothing. But let's try to cut the mysticism of the widebody life.

I have no doubt that long-haul has many challenges. Fatigue is real. I get it. But I used to work for a large European carrier and sat on the jumpseat of one of our MD-11s from ZRH-ATL and for the whole flight wondered when it was going to get tough. The whole flight was less time than a normal duty day for us. During that time they did one take-off and one landing. One of each checklist. Not 6 of each. They did their fuel checks and nav checks. And ate breakfast. Then lunch. Then they took some breaks and watched a movie. Then they landed in ATL and went to the hotel.

If flying long-haul was as challanging as some folks make it out to be, those senior guys would be fighting to get RJs on the list at their companies so they could fly the easy RJ trips.

I guess that's not happening, is it?