Nothing wrong with parking at T2, at all. At the same time if the OP is coming from a non-jet/non-121 environment, jumping right into a tide pod livery 737 in a non-AQP environment might not be the best entry point into the airline world. Everyone's situation is unique.


To the OP - since everyone's situation is unique, I'll say I really like the MSP flying. I know the ground crews at a bunch of the outstate stations, and I think it's cool to fly into tiny airports as well as larger ones like ATL, DEN, DFW, DTW, LAX, SFO, etc all of which I've done in the last three months on awarded trips. I don't like long multi-hour legs, so I bid to avoid them but that means more legs per day which doesn't really bother me. The chief pilot is very supportive, and the flying will be increasing (see Cirium etc. for the actual # of departures) over the next few months. The downsides to MSP are that you have to actively try to fly outside the local system - it won't just "happen"; you have to actively bid to do it (you can always pick up out of base, but that commute is then on you) along with the CA imbalance. The CA/FO imbalance means that FOs on reserve don't fly as much - the same amount of flying being spread amongst a larger number of FOs means that each FO gets less flying (that's not SkyWest specific though it is acutely felt here). Finally, if you want to build time, you'll need to be senior enough to avoid the standups/CDOs. They go senior on the CA side, but not nearly as many FOs prefer them and so many go extremely junior.


Airport ready reserve exists, but it's usually tacked onto the end of a trip or stuffed into the middle somewhere. Either way it counts towards breaking guarantee. Standalone ready assignments aren't a thing any more.