There's supposedly a bit of a gentleman's agreement with the Chief Pilot's and the furloughees. At least this is what the Chief Pilot told me in my furlough phone call before I got furloughed. He told me explicitly, "If you have to resign your seniority number to get another job, do what you have to do... I have a shredder behind my desk that will be shredding all resignation letters and you will be recalled in order of seniority." Basically, he was saying go ahead and resign but we're going to turn our head and pretend it didn't happen.

So, if you believe a chief pilot, you can have your cake and eat it too. If you're a Nov. 5th furlough, I would assume you've received that phone call by now. I received my call about 3 weeks before Oct. 5th.

FWIW, I put my application in at Mesaba and they sent an email about a week later stating they had plenty more qualified applicants than me.