OK yeah you 2 are right. But they will be in a league of their own.

You can’t “become” a legacy carrier. A carrier either is or isn’t. A “Legacy” has to have been active in interstate travel prior to deregulation. Some will say the SWA is a legacy since they were around prior to dereg. However, they didn’t branch out of Texas until after deregulation. So, technically they don’t actually meet both criteria.

Thanks..I got it as I said a few posts after mine. Can't edit it so it stays.

you are wrong.

The point of my analogy is that something can be objectively very nice and not ne plus ultra.

It is also not entirely subjective. If you want to go down that road why constrain ourselves to pilot jobs. Someone might be happier teaching Algebra.

pay opportunities, work rules, etc. the lcc/ulcc carriers are not the highest. They can be terrific jobs but that doesn’t make them the best possible jobs.

AA's work rules are worse than a lot of LCCs, so I wouldn't paint things with such a broad brush. The lines near the top of the airline hierarchy have been blurred by the latest LCC contracts. It could be argued that Spirit has many better work rules than AA does.
Also, you can't just say "work rules". There is no scoreboard. Some airlines have some good rules, some less so.
Damn, Envoy has better reassignment rules for lineholders than AA does. Does that mean Envoy has better work rules? Heck no.

You clearly have never read a LCC contract or the work rules in them. Keep drinking the Legacy Kool Aid. Fine by me.

Slams hand on table. Hey. HEY! Don’t be letting the cat out of the bag about WN and LCC!

Scope baby!

And flow to AA is the Miata of a deal. On its own, it’s not much of a bargain. You have to Jack with it before it gets on par with a Cobra.

Remember the "monster miata"? There was a mod to drop in an older 5.0L.

And you’ve read and understand all the legacy airline contracts? You also seem to be quite bothered that not everyone wants to fly an Airbus for an LCC for their entire career.

We're arguing over semantics.
 

I think the problem with this whole debate is that we’re using the term “legacy” too loosely. No one’s trying to argue that WN is a legacy as defined by the Deregulation Act of ‘78. However, I think we can agree that a career with them is viewed by many as being on the same level of prestige as the big three. They’re not viewed as “just another LCC.” So much so that people frequently refer to the “big four” now. When people call WN a legacy, they’re not referring to the literal definition, but to the fact that it occupies space in the same sphere as AA, DL, and UA that the other LCCs don't necessarily occupy (although we could argue that some of them are catching up, i.e. the previous comment about B6 flying to London). By that same token, when people say they’re trying to get to a legacy, they usually mean only the big three; they’re not including Alaska and Hawaiian into that mix (in my experience at least). So I think we need to to come up with a better term than “legacy airline.” We need to call them prestige airlines, or premier airlines, or whatever you want, because not everyone is trying to get to a "legacy," but I think it's safe to say that most people do shoot for one of the “big 6.” We need a term that encapsulates the prestige they all carry without only making reference to the guys who were there pre-deregulation.