SSD has it right.
The great difference between the old days; when legacy BA long haul captains earned well over £100 K and Colgan, where the right hand seater at Buffalo was apparently criss crossing the US in her own time and maybe sleeping in crew rooms to earn (according to one report LESS than in McDs) peanuts is one of the things that changed the appeal for ever.
The other (for me) is the hours, the early starts, the late finishes, the lost weekends, Christmases and Bank Holidays I've seen my airline friends suffer (and curse).
I prefer a well paid job and to fly for fun whenever I want.