Im a SW guy, been here 3 years. Really like the job and the compny. No problem with the 737. If you prefer 1 leg days and long overnights at hotels, but more days on the road then you may look at UAL or AA. Living close to ORD/MDW will have a very positive impct on your qol regardless of which company you choose. Congrats and good luck!

I work for SWA. You really can’t go wrong with any of your choices.
SWA - unparalleled flexibility and amazing QOL and/or income potential living in a mega base.
AA - holy seniority movement...financials not as good as other carriers but your job is basically furlough proof due to retirements.
UA - decent seniority movement and the ability to switch between wide and narrow body flying. The most wide body flying of any major carrier and a huge base in ORD that goes fairly junior.

I envy your decision. Best of luck.

Did you count profit sharing in the pay comparison?

Haven’t even applied? You act like this is easy. You know there are very qualified folks that haven’t heard a word after years of trying. Apply to all of them. Why start with one when you may hear from none...

I understand the question, the only way I can answer that is to say that my methodology fits my particular situation.
If you can think wildly out of the box, you may understand my methods.
Ask yourself what kind of man doesn't seem desperate to land a "dream job"
I do appreciate the advice though, I think it is good advice for most aspiring airline pilots.
And thanks again to all who have the taken time to answer my basic question of QOL in the first 5 years.

You are way off on your rosy projection of upgrade dropping to 5-6 year mark in the near future. I agree that it will come down from the current 10 yrs that it has been for the last 7 years but it will not come down to 5-6 for anyone. It will slowly come down to 8.5 over the next two years and then may come down to 7-7.5 but you're wearing a very dark shade of rose colored glasses if you think anyone on the current seniority list will upgrade in 5-6 years from date of hire.

I turned down swa after seeing my friends schedule for 4 months. He had been at swa almost 2 yrs and it was every weekend. Not one weekend off. Everyone is on the 737 he explained and you are competing with the entire seniority list and the only desirable attribute is weekdays. Company is awesome and every pax loves swa but that weekends forever deal didnt appeal to me. Maybe I screwed up but I wont know for a few years.

Right now guys in my bid group bid out for bigger airplanes which makes movement at AA pretty damn impressive. The awarded lines were horrible for me this summer as a junior guy but I was able improve every one of them and I didnt work more than 14 days a month all summer. We have ACD soon so those 19 day/90hr lines are history. We can drop to zero at AA (if the trip is green). In July, I dropped down to 20hrs which was nice.

It’s almost there at AA now.

I am not a SWA cheerleader at all, but if your friend was flying weekends at two years, they are either not bidding weekdays on purpose or in a senior base like ATL or MCO. We also have a mechanism to trade into days we want/need or drop days (harder to drop, but I manage 2-3 days a month).
I agree that being stuck on the 737 has its drawbacks, but a single fleet also has a lot of benefits when it comes to flexibility. The pool of flying you can dip into is huge and anyone can fly any trip from any base with no restrictions. That makes for a very healthy trading and open time economy when manning is right (currently overmanned on the FO side).
That being said, if I were in your shoes, I would probably have gone to AA too. The seniority picture there over the next few years is amazing.

I have most weekends off, and I haven’t been here a full year yet. I don’t get them on my initial bid, but it’s no problem to trade into the schedule I want