Originally Posted by
krismiler
At which stage you could go to Gulf Air or Air Lanka on the L1011, or SQ on the B747 and fly for another 5-10 years while drawing a BA pension. Later on the expanding LCCs were very happy to have highly experienced DECs and trainers join them, balancing out the 200hr F/Os and 3000hr Captains.
A friend a couple of years older than me did just that, went to SQ. Before leaving it seems he had persuaded his wife to regard it as "five lost years, after which they would be set up for life". To maximise the financial benefits he'd also changed his domicile (to Cyprus I think?) for tax reasons. Bumped into him a few years later in SIN, where he would come to the most popular BA crew pub. He said it was a miserable existence, the working atmosphere was much worse than BA, had lost contact with many friends in the UK and with a dying parent couldn't return without exceeding UK days and losing the tax perk. He also died relatively young so didn't really collect the planned golden benefits. So while you are quite right; as I said it didn't appeal to me one bit. But each to their own!