So far, foreign carriers have been seeking out senior U.S. pilots approaching retirement age, but some predict more and more junior U.S. fliers eventually will spend their careers overseas. China will need an estimated 35,000 pilots in the next 20 years, and the rest of Asia will require 56,500.

Kit Darby, founder of AIR Inc., a pilot job placement firm, said Asian and Middle Eastern carriers have begun attending U.S. pilot job fairs.

"There's quite a bit of competition for experienced captains overseas, and demand is still increasing," Darby said. "There's an acute shortage, particularly in India and China. There's almost no civilian pilot training in those countries, and military pilots stay in the military their whole careers. Those countries are going to need more pilots than they're making, and that's likely to be true for quite a while."

The Waldrons raised their family in Cobb County and say they treasure time with family and friends in Waleska. A glassed-in porch on the second story of the couple's 3,800-square-foot house overlooks Lake Arrowhead where, on a recent visit, trees dropped fiery autumn leaves into the chill water.

"Living overseas is hard," said Denis, a tall and lanky tennis player with a full head of graying hair. "My dad's in a hospice here, and I wish I could be with him more. The jet lag and the all-nighters are brutal but necessary. I'd rather work intensively for a relatively short period of time than draw it out over a longer time frame."

The Waldrons keep in touch with their adult children, two daughters and a son, through e-mail and phone calls. They watch cable TV in Seoul, and the entire city has wireless Internet access, so they can keep up with online news from home. Denis watches pirated DVDs on his frequent trips and says he's seen more movies in the past six months than the entire previous decade.

But the couple never expected to be uprooted at this stage in their lives — and they resent what they call the looting of Delta by its former managers.

In Seoul, Rosalyn, a former teacher, acts as an unofficial den mother for expat pilots, cooking meals, organizing gatherings and arranging day trips around South Korea.

"We're making the best of our situation and turning it into an adventure," she said. "But Seoul isn't a vacation destination, and no one would confuse our utilitarian apartment there with (former Delta CEO) Leo Mullin's mansion on Cape Cod.

"It's the unfairness of things like (former Delta chief financial officer) Michelle Burns insisting on first-class airline travel for life that gets to me," she said. "If the sacrifices had been made equally (between managers and workers), no one would have any resentment at all. But the sacrifices weren't equal."