Leaving For Delta
 

If you've been at Southwest Airlines for less than 5 years I think it might be worth looking into jumping ship to DAL, AA, UA, FedEx, UPS.
But who knows.....we had pilots at Southwest that left for United in 1999,2000,2001 and then became double furloughees -- once after 9/11, recalled in '06-07' only to be furloughed again in the 2008-2009 timeframe.
HUGE financial mistake for those guys.
Will history repeat itself again with guys jumping from Southwest to others only to get hosed by unforeseen events down the road?
What might those be you ask....
Maybe Southwest really does kill it in the international markets and not only expands there with narrow-bodies north and south but then buys their own wide bodies for east-west flying.
Maybe Congress hoses us all and allows changes to the rules regarding foreign carriers flying into and out of the US or rules regarding foreign ownership of airlines. Or maybe DAL, AA, UA continue to lose market share flying long haul international when competing against the Middle East carriers and actually try to shrink to profitability like they did in the past domestically and they lost market share to you guessed it - Southwest among others.
No crystal ball but the current dynamics of the industry can change very rapidly. Choose wisely......

Choose to fly out of where you live (or want to live) at a strong company. Can't really control anything else.

^^^^ This. Period. Dot.

Contracts come and go. The economy goes up and down, but if one thing can remain constant, that being driving to work, which is arguably the greatest QOL improvement then you are sure to be satisfied regardless of whether you are at the top or bottom of earning potential at a given time at your given airline.

Commuting to a different airline that pays more than an airline you can drive to right now may certainly be worth it to you, but ask yourself if in 10 years your airline ends up below the other airlines in terms of earnings, but you're still stuck commuting will it still be worth it?

Ultimately everyone's situation is different and we all have to determine what is best for ours.