Originally Posted by saab2000

Doubtful but I doubt they would do it for the ETOPS in any case. They still have to train thousands of pilots for it eventually. Even at Sun Country (where I spent a year) the vast majority of the ETOPS flying is done by just a small subset of the crews even though all are trained in it.

I've heard the leases at SY aren't very favorable and the integration of even the small pilot group would be thorny.

The biggest reason to acquire Sunny would be to take control of the Terminal 2 at MSP and I've heard Southwest doesn't really want to start a war with Delta in either MSP or Atlanta. It would be a fight nobody would win and both sides would lose.

Let things go the way they will with Sun Country but I don't really see Southwest acquiring them even though they have some ETOPS experience.

Southwest could hire ETOPS experts as consultants into the training dept. and have this done with Boeing's assistance very quickly. As mentioned, there are tons of pilots here at Southwest with oceanic experience in previous careers.