Because I'd estimate that 90% of the NB Captains I have spoken with say they got off wide body flying because of the fatigue.

fatigue and back side of the clock is a big deal.

I am curious though....Any stats on how many of our pilots live within an hours drive of SFO? That place seems so darn expensive, how could anyone live there, or afford that kind of lifestyle. Heck, I wouldn't even want to raise a family near that place even though my seniority on any airplane would be amazing. I guess folks just commute??

88 hours of wide body FO pay equals about 75 hours of NB Capt pay...so there is that.

One hour? Not many.
Two hours? Quite a few.
Three hours? You get the picture.

On the 73 I fly I’d say most guys are “local”, as defined by being able to sit short call at home, but just barely.

Lots of commuters from the SEA and DEN areas, some from IAH. Probably a lot more willing to commute for widebody flying.

LAX 777 is less than 40 pilots; barely a speed bump in training. About a month of retirements?

On the bright side, there are enough unfilled vacancies to 'fund' approximately 4 newhire classes; I'm hoping that they'll announce 2 additional classes which start before the end of July.

I live an hour from Sfo in a great community with lots of families. I can easily sit short call from home and plan on bidding WB in the next year or so and tell the crew desk not to bother me unless I need to go to tk for landings every 3 months.

As a Sac guy, wondering which community you live in. Not many more reasonable and closer that I can think of other than the Travis Metroplex.

Even if you can hold a line upgrade isn’t always that great of a deal. Most 777/787 trips are commutable both ends and productive. A junior line holding 737/320 captain will have to fly more days, plus most likely give up days commuting the day before or after a trip. In my seniority I’d end up flying or commuting 5-6 extra days a month to upgrade for about $40K a year more. This gig is a package deal for me. I value days off pretty high. Some people are not wired for long haul flying. It’s nice to have a choice.

And some of us prefer to actually sleep for more than 3-4 hours at a time, like to avoid back side of the clock flying. I did international for a while and while commuting was able to convince myself that it was so great. Flash forward to my 50s and sitting left seat and I’m SOOO much happier and healthier according to my Dr.

To each their own. Some people can live never sleeping for 8 hrs straight and that life is great. I am not one of those people.

To each their own, but personally I’m never going back to flying more than 2 time zones away ever again. I enjoyed it in my 30’s and early 40’s but time caught up to me.