It's not the 15 year guys who will leave, it's the stapled guys, the newly-hired, and the low-to-midlevel FO's.

In six or seven years years from now, they'll be a senior wide-body FO at a Legacy, versus a mid-level 737FO at SWA flying a wheezing -300 from El Paso to Tulsa.

I'm a mid level F.O. And I'm not going anywhere. I guess it is all what you are looking for. I would love some day to fly a widebody except I just don't care for the mission. Long haul missions with lots of back side of the clock flying just doesn't interest me. I hear people brag about their 30 hour Paris layover and I am glad they are enjoying it but for me I would much rather spend that down time at home with my family. I will take my 17 or 18 hour El Paso layover any time because I know it will allow me 18-19 days at home which is what truly makes me happy while at work.

I hear ya, but keep in mind many international trips are 3 day trips worth between 20-30 hours.

I have several friends on the 747 that have 21 days off per month. When you take vacation and sick calls in to account, many work about 6 days per month on average.

Like you, I prefer domestic flying.

It's not nearly that cut & dry, Max. I think what it really boils down to, is whether you want to bet your career on Southwest's scope vs. Legacy retirements. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, ALL Southwest passengers are flown by SWAPA pilots...no other airline can say that (and don't give me ATN, because they'll all be SWAPA pilots soon enough). While the Legacies do indeed have many retirements currently with much more to come, their legions of joint-venture and code-sharing partners could easily take up some current mainline capacity. With their lack of scope, it most certainly is not set in stone that the Big Three will maintain five-figure pilot seniority lists in the years ahead. Exhibit A: Delta. Their mainline has done nothing but shrink since the merger and the new contract have become effective.

Tough choice. I honestly wouldn't know which way to advise a young buck lucky enough to have offers from each.

As a MIL guy on the outside getting ready to retire and go to the airlines in a few years, it seems that SWA having little turn over and the legacy airlines expecting lots of turn over, shows more that guys aren't leaving SWA because they like the QOL. Is that accurate or is there more to the SWA vs. everyone else story?

No, the legacies do not have turn-over.
In short, they are hiring because of retirements..

Regardless of what the doom and gloomers post here, that is not true about Delta. Yes, there are areas of concern with regards codesharing and JVs, but overall the RJ fleet has shrunk and mainline has grown, albeit the NB fleet. WB growth would be better, but in this context, SWA vs Delta, since career expectation at SWA is a NB captain, isn't it apples to apples?

this is a crystal ball question

To clarify, I was referring to the number of Delta pilots shrinking, not aircraft (the number that really matters). Which brings up another consideration: productivity. SWA pilots have long lead the industry in productivity (avg annual block hrs flown, pilots/aircraft, etc), and it sounds like the legacies will be striving to improve their pilot productivity in the future. Which will bring more stagnation like Delta is experiencing currently with no new-hires replacing their retiring pilots. As an aside, SWA-ATN combined is currently quite overstaffed due to fleet & Intl qual & new res system issues (hence no movement here for awhile), but that will resolve in the next 2 years.

Which leads to a third consideration: growth opportunities. The Big 3, through their own fleets and their many codesharing partners, already pretty much fly from everywhere to everywhere else. Where SWA is just starting to break out of the lower 48. It's a big untapped world out there and unless there is a major cave on scope from SWAPA, it will all be flown by SWAPA pilots

Call me crazy, but I predict significant growth by SWA in not only "near" international, but long-haul markets. At a recent message to the field Gary said our goal was to be "the world's favorite airline". Once the AirTran thing settles out, near-international becomes the norm and the 737Max is on board, I see us buying a wide body airplane and going far...5-10 year horizon.