Its all relative:
makes the trips loooong hard to have a norm life
If you're a homebody, then World is not for you. I like "2 weeks on 2 weeks off." IMHO its better then 3 on 2 off, 3 on 2 off etc, etc. I have a 2 week vacation every month! Actually 3 weeks this month, and that's without vacation!
typical 15 hr duty nights
You want to fly the big iron, you're going to have long days. Even at DL and UPS, you think 777/747s have short trips? Besides, not every leg 15hrs, nor night.
Think a 4 hr dead head is bad....try 18 hrs
16 hours is max. Unless you approve. Its hard to get to Asia/Europe in 4 hrs. Think Pro, lots of FF miles to take your wife somewhere, positive space!
shortstaffed & they hire a whopping 4 pilots
A more correct statement would be they started with 4. Had we not been swamped with trng requirements due to fleet changes we would have hired lot more. More hiring this winter. New hires will have to go to 747 if we get a sixth one in 2011.
Projected Fleet by this time next year:
16 - MD-11
5 - 747-400