Hah, 6 months ago SWA was the devil. We get a new contract and now everyone is saying all in for WN!

Whichever you can drive to will get you the QOL you seek.

 

I have experience with 0:45 up to 6 hour air commutes, and driving from 2 up to five hours.

A lot depends on the nature of the alternative air commute, once the drive exceeds three hours. Also the nature of the drive matters, three hours on an open highway on cruise control is quite a different animal than three hours to go cover 50 miles in rush hour traffic.

I'd say that three hours drive would be my max and even that would be stretching it a bit. You're going to have to really push the fatigue boundaries, especially dribing home after a late finish, or get a hotel. If you're getting a hotel anyway, then the air commute looks more palatable.

I have a spectrum of music for my drive, on one end is Jazz. The other end is German heavy metal, that's for driving home well after midnight after a long duty day.

Also that's a lot of gas. EV's don't have the range to do 2-4 hours, sit in the lot for 4-6 days, and then get you home at 0230 without charging. At this point you can't yet rely on charger availability in employee parking. Maybe a hybrid to cut gas costs?


Separate note... regarding the Max. If MCAS had reared it's ugly head in 2029 instead of 2019, there would have been several airlines in very deep financial doo-doo. Like liquidation, unless .gov threw them a very large life-ring. Even this latest issue occured with relatively few max in service, and during a normal seasonal low combined with economy-induced low bookings... couldn't have happened at a better time, probably would have been quite ugly financially if it happened in Jun vice Jan.

So yeah I lose some sleep over that. Hopefully BCA can be fixed somehow.

 

SWA.. drive to work and enjoy your 18 days off.

 

In the nearly 3 decades I've been with SW, I did an airplane commute for 6 years, a 3 hour drive for 18 and a 45 minute drive for the rest. All the drives have been to the second most senior base for my longevity.

No doubt that the 45 minute drive is the best, by orders of magnitude, but the same can be said when comparing the 3 hour drive vs. airplane.

The 3 hour drive sucked, especially the last few years, but it still wasn't worth commuting on an airplane, even for 15-20% better seniority in other domiciles.

Nowadays, I look back and can't believe that I did that drive for as long as I did before moving to a domicile, which I should've done at least a decade sooner. But I still don't regret not airplane commuting.

And I cannot recall the last time I did 5 legs at SW. I am talking at the latest, mid 2000's, maybe. It's rare to do 4 these days.

Sadly, the duty days are longer now trying to get 2-3 legs done, vs the old days when we'd get 6 legs done in 8 or 9 hours.

YMMV.

For the OP:

Given the parameters you've given, choose the one that you can DRIVE to. Long term airplane commutes take years off your life.

 

SWA but keep applying to Delta and United, then jump ship if/when you get hired where you really want to be.

SWA is still great for flexibility and there are a lot worse things than being a senior guppy switch monkey while waiting for upgrade, but you're right to be worried about the MAX and how tightly SWA has tied it's future to a product that simply cannot be delivered by a company that's been on the fail train for years.

 

I'm all in for the drive over a career long commute . If things were equal I'd say go to AA.

 

To the OP... what are your priorities?

You'll make captain sooner at AA if you choose to, but you'll be relegated to commuting for the rest of your career. How important is that 4th stripe to you and how quickly? Also, do you care what you fly?

You'll have a great career at both airlines. I do think Southwest is on a much better financial footing than AA, but I don't think that matters nearly as much anymore as it used to. Not sure about AA, but many of us don't have much faith in our top management. While personally, I think our CEO is a very nice person who means well, I think he is in so far over his head and has absolutely zero leadership skills or experience, and any successful company can easily fall from grace very quickly in the hands of incompetent people.

Having said that, 2 hour drive on your own time vs. commute on theirs, not even in the same league. Take the drive every time. Depending on the base, you may even be able to commute by your own airplane if you have one. A number of us would do that as well, and our QOL is substantially better doing that, but some airports where we have bases are more accommodating to small plane than others.

When it's all said and done, commuting on your own timeframe vs. commuting on airline schedule's time is no contest. You could arrive at your base at 10, and just miss your last flight home if you're commuting on airlines vs. you can be home at midnight or even sooner commuting on your own time. Like I said, no contest.

And no, you really gotta try and find 5 legs a day. Even 4 are kinda far and few in between, and usually involve short legs. I just did one recently and it was 8.5 hours of duty time for 4 short legs.

 

At Sw schedules are either AM (0400-0600) show or PM (0000-0200) release. Very few commutable trips, and commutable means different things for different people. You will not get bankers hours trips at sw. They are too rare. I'm under 10% in base and I dont get them.
we need to put the idea it's easy to drop trips at sw to pasture. There is no mechanism to straight drop trips to the company. You can try your hand at ELLIT down a trip( usually 1 day at a time) or giving it away or trading with another crewman.
in slow months like February it's easier to give away flying to others as there isnt much extra flying to be had, but in the summer months... fogetaboutit.
Also it is possible to move trips around for your schedule but it takes the ability to trade with others as after about 7 min of opening all that's left to trade with the company is weekend flying.
So if by flexibility you mean the ability to work more? Sw definitely has that. To work fewer days? Not so much.
The average line holder get 17 days off a month. Max seems to be 19. Reserve only works 15 a month.
all you'll get with senority at SW is weekends of and better chance at vacation bidding. That's it. The trips are all the same regardless of senority and there is nothing different to fly and no where new to go after about a yr.
5 legs days exist and its usually California flying. Super easy. But I'd saying fewer than 10% have this. Average is 3 / day.
You'll work harder at sw but you'll make more per day.
in your situation I'd fo to Sw. It's a drive, your guard job is there, and you're family is already there and planted.
Get in a SW and find someone to teach you the game and you'll do just fine and work fewer days with more time at home.

 

So let me get this straight. You know more about WN schedule better than people actually work for WN? There goes that Delta superior complex. Hate to break it to you. You not special. You are another token for DEI

 

I hadn't until I started doing Hawaii inter-island flying. Even then, it's rarely every time. I had a 3-leg 3-day trip not too long ago: a crossing, a single 20-minute inter-island flight, and a crossing back home. I spent more time in the hotel van than the airplane on day 2.

Never once have I done 5 legs on the mainland, and even 4 is very rare.