I always felt "dry as a bone" by the end of a long day and regularly had ear pops. Especially on the A320.
Same here, lot's of ear infections when I was flying the A319. Dunno if it was those 4 daily packs off take off's, fatigue making me more susceptible to bacteria, bad cockpit hygiene or what whatever.
As for the 60 million Dollar question, EZY command v.s. long haul F/O, it all comes down to how you are situated in life.
*) Marriage problems: happen both in short haul and long haul. If someone can not keep their
inside their pants on a nightstop, then something is usually something fundamentally wrong in the marriage, or the person in question has very limited personal responsibility, again a fundamental issue which has little to do with long haul or short haul.
*) Money: sure, money makes the world go round and it's important to get a proper compensation for the work and responsibilities involved. However, that said, again I see a lot of very irresponsible pilots around. People who squander enormous amounts of money on cars, gadgets, clothes, houses, vacations etc without paying off their student debt. These people are and will be permanently caught in a rat race where a promotion (capt) will only lead to more spending. It's these kind of 'command and/or type rating chasers' that usually recommend you to follow the money (short haul upgrade) instead of working for a decent outfit doing a job you enjoy despite having less money at the end of the month. I never forget the time with EZY and comparing my roster to the person left of me. I "only" had 20-30 sectors that month and the captain I was flying with me was suggesting that 'that's bad, because you don't make a lot of money.' The look on his face was priceless when I told him that I couldn't care less about the money and preferred to live healthy, but hey, this guy had an expensive car, an ex-wife (see point number 1 about marriage!) and a very expensive lifestyle to pay for so he needed all those sectors. Talking about being a slave to debt...
*) Job satisfaction: for lot's of people being a captain is the ultimate in job satisfaction, or so they think being an F/O's. Some people love those 4 sector days of up-and-down's. For others it's those long straight and level sectors, the long haul life of actually seeing something of this planet we live on instead of just tarmacs and the road to/from work.
It's all personal, don't let 'the four stripes' or the 'wide body jet rating' be instrumental in making the decision.
Life is more than just hard work, and if you think you will enjoy long haul, if you can be reasonably sure that the wife won't end up in bed with the tennis teacher or yourself in bed with some trolley dolly, if you are responsible with money and you don't need the extra cash 4 stripes bring you, if you're sick and tired (literally!) from flogging a 737 or 319 throughout Europe, if you are willing to take the risk of switching jobs in economic uncertain times, and last but not least, if you can join a stable career oriented airline which offers both long haul and also short haul then I would definitely consider it.
As for myself, when I left EZY, I never had to think long or hard whether or not to take the job offer for the company I now work for. I don't live to work, I work to live and in EZY I found that I was not living my life the way I wanted. In EZY I was having serious health problems with those continuous 'early-to-late' duties with only a few days in between which were only enough to rest, never enough to really fully recover. I felt that I was ageing twice as fast in EZY and despite some jet lag, my life, health and social life have improved by 100% after leaving that Orange bullsh!t behind. I felt like a zombie in EZY, always behind the powercurve for as far as fatigue was concerned. Five long 10-11 duty hours EZY earlies with barely enough time to drive home, get a proper (not crew!) meal at home and sleep, and I was a complete wreck. Social life: nearly non-existent. Same for the short haul lates.
In my current long haul job I'm also occasionally tired, however I'm not wrecked from squeezing out 4 short haul sectors on pure adrenaline after a bad night's sleep. There's a big difference between being tired or being wrecked! I'm 'just' tired after a long (night) flight and usually I have a couple of days off to fully recharge the battery. My sleep pattern has improved (despite long haul!), I have more energy, I do more sports, meet more people and I'm rarely ill.
As for job security: there is none! Nowhere! Sure, perhaps if the whole world economy implodes then the EZY and RYR pilots will still have a "job" but don't ask how much they will be making in real terms (net pay minus their liabilities), or under what conditions. Personally, I'm pretty sure I'd rather be unemployed, live off my savings or venture into a completely different career instead of working for a low cost airline in such a scenario.
That said, timing is everything, and in today's economic reality I would definitely wait a bit until things stabilize before switching companies.
p.s. be careful judging the merit of the recommendations you read here because with a few exceptions, most people recommending the EZY 4 stripes probably never have flown long haul. When I left EZY, lot's of FO's and young freshly upgraded captains (mind you, all these people only had short haul experience!) were trying to convince me to stay in EZY and go for my command with all kinds of horror stories they had heard about long haul flying. Most simply had (and still have!) no clue what they are talking about, and the ones that did have a clue (ex-BA B747 pilots who joined EZY after retirement) all actually recommended making the move.
