It’s not easy unless you get called. But if your somewhere where you’re thinking of spending your career it is a decision. Consistent strong effort over time is powerful. I think people from Frontier or other majors with a degree and 5000+ hours generally have a pretty good leg up in the process.
speaking from experience when I got to a major i reconsidered extra hard to even make application and only applied at SWA. I wanted to come here. After all I would’ve been fine where I was but I chose this over everything instead of choosing everything over where I was, I’d imagine that says something.