I'm IAD based and will be forced to do this as well. Even being in the top 10 for DAY line holder captains the lines are all early start and late finishes. It's gonna be hell.

What class date did SkyWest give you? I ask because when I got hired at AirWis years ago it took my class almost 4 months from day one of indoc to last day of IOE because of traffic jams in the training pipeline. If SkyWest can give you a class date in the next 6 months, just keep working wherever you are now. AirWis training is not impossible by any means but it’s also far from easy. Why would you want to put yourself through that just to quit shortly after?

This is also probably not bad advice. I know absolutely nothing about Sun Country but I know it’s not a regional and I know regionals are (generally) pretty awful.

If you're asking if absorbing the company training that could have been given to an honest employee who intended to stay, enhancing your resume with a new type rating, then failing to give any service in return and jumping ship is frowned upon, it really sounds like you're asking if you can perform an act of dishonor without looking bad. Kind of like asking if you steal something, will anyone give you a hard time?

Honesty ad integrity is what you do when no one is looking. Think about that.

I’m not at all disagreeing with you but looking bad and having that affect your career are two different things. There was a time when it was difficult to get a job at any airline, even regionals supply far outnumbered demand. If you did this back then it would be possible that the airline you “dishonored” would get in touch with your next airline and discuss your actions to the point that the second airline might “unhire” you by some means and now you look bad on paper and have a lot of explaining to do at future interviews. I think these days the second airline would just be happy to have a warm body in a classroom and it really wouldn’t affect you in any way. Again, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be frowned upon, I just don’t think it would really ever come back to bite you in the next decade or so.

Yet UAL specifically hires pilots from ULCC’s who spent a few months at the regionals, then a few months at the ULCC’s. At both those interviews said pilot’s told stone cold lies on their desires to work for those said Airlines. As you call it, that “act of dishonor” rewarded them with an easy path to a legacy.

This type of behavior is being rewarded in the industry. Tbh it probably has always been rewarded we just hadn’t noticed because the hiring wasn’t as crazy as today.

To the original poster. Go to Air Wisconsin and then apply to Sun County the hour after you receive your ATP and type rating from AW.

You're tripping on some bs corporate brainwashing. A company would not bat an eye, give a second thought to furloughing you. They would cut you out if it made investors another dollar. You owe the multimillion and billion dollar companies absolutely nothing. Do what's best for you and don't worry about the fee fees of the faceless behemoth doing everything they can to extract every ounce of value out of you.

Commuting sucks
everyone is now doing it. Fewer flights, more commuters has made it extremely difficult to do.
I loved my time at AW and I would have stayed had the commute not been so unbearable. I got tired of either coming in the day before, or not being able to go home until the day after. Or I’d have to leave early AM on the first flight on day 1 and come home the last flight on day 4. Then I’d have to hope for no maintenance or weather delays. Then I’d have a jumpseat only for one with a higher priority come along and bump me off at the last minute.
my advice would, if you can, live in base and avoid commuting if you can.

Yup... Commuting Sucks!

That being said I have just passed 1 year at AW and have commuted St Louis to MKE pretty much the entire time (my first month after IOE I was sitting reserve at ORD). For me, moving to MKE was not an option, so I stay in hotels when I need to. My worst month was last December when I spent about $800 on hotels. Since then I have been a lineholder at MKE and I don't think I have had to pay for more than 2 hotels in a month. This was because a decent portion of my assigned trips started or ended with a deadhead to/from ORD (which I would ask to be released from) and for those that don't a decent number of them would have another FO deadheading to/from ORD so I would reach out and ask if there was interest in a trade...

So yeah, commuting sucks, but there are ways of improving the suck.

I commute to DFW for a different company, and it’s not awesome. As if sitting in the back of airplane isn’t bad enough already, having the stress of “will I make this flight?” sucks. And when you have that, you take an earlier flight to be safe. But there went half of your day off, to get to work.