Time zone changes? Well, if you stay up all night long in Munich after not taking a nap, then you probably would be tired. (until you take your 3 hour nap in a crew rest seat across the pond). I think you would be much more tired with 5-6 legs and AM trips at Southwest. You have no time to rest, and knowing you have 4 more legs to go after you do an early AM from ELP to PHX (with LAX, SJC, SEA, and GEG to go) just doesn't sound fun, at all. But don't worry, you can go to the local pub in GEG where they have the 1 2 3 rule and drink your sorrows away, and go to bed a 6pm so you can do the same thing tomorrow---GEG--BOI--SLC--STL--CLE--DTW. Sweet!
Instead, you can go to Venice, Italy from ATL or JFK, stay at a very nice hotel and take a short ride to the canals and have a real Italian dinner, get some sleep, and then fly home, flying a 3 day worth 22 hours, and having a total of 3 pilots. If you lack landings for the month, you can pick up 757 trips that are shorter (like St Martaen, Aruba (24 hour layover on the beach), always fun Bogota, Quito or Guayaquil (Ecuador), or the ever popular San Jose, Costa Rica. Options. You can stay in the same time zone and fly Latin America, or you can go way South to South America, or you can go to Africa and spot a zebra and eat a roasted Rhino, or you can go to Europe and drink beer. Or, you can even bid domestic and fly one of 5 or 6 other types of planes and do the Southwest style flying. Options. That is the difference. Here we can fly a 738 (we have 737-700s on order, with winglets too) forever, and in the last year we can bid 777 and see Dubai. Options are great. We had a newhire just get the 767ER INTL out of JFK too. It is not out of reach.
Bye Bye--General Lee