I have extensive experience with a UK major airline in both the longhaul and shorthaul evironments. Each can be as bad as the other fatigue wise. For example:
- NASA research indicates that rest downroute should not be rostered between 18 and 36 hours, as the body does not have time to complete sufficient sleep cycles. So what is the average rest time on a transatlantic? Yep.. 24 hours. Ready for the next sleep pattern as you report, and I have come off the Atlantic ocean into a busy ATC environment trading on adrenalin more times than I care to remember. And then there's the drive home...
- In shorthaul, multiple early starts, long duty days, minimum rest in the hotel and a 6-on/ 2-off pattern have a debilitating, cumulative effect. Social life is next to impossible on the 2 off, as they are essentially recovery days... factor in the added pressure that brings to bear from relationship stress and, well....
- The complete lack of protection between west/east integrations in longhaul.. To come from a 3-day Dubai on day, and operate a 3-day New York next makes it impossible to try to plan a sensible rest pattern.
- Locked cockpit door, the knowledge that anyone enters your cockpit to take over the aircraft and you are likely going to die, increasingly invasive and utterly pointless searches at security (vis.. they make me take my shoes off, when all I really need to do to down an airliner is stick that foot out in the cruise,) inability to take family on trips any more as no way can you guarantee their return as you used to on the jumpseat... all adds a little bit to the stress bucket.
..and on, and on. All that, and you have a beer to wind down of an evening and are a criminal, when the greater threat to the safety of your passengers is the fact that sometimes you can hardly keep your eyes open. All this is a major airline remember.. the guys who fly for CAP 371 operators and the freight jocks can have it worse.
Yeah, it's a glamorous job indeed. Knowing what I know now, I don't think I'd do it again... it's been great, met wonderful people and seen sights and sounds that most of humanity don't get to. But it's just not worth it unless you can have control over your life, and that we do not have.