Pay somebody double or triple out of your own pocket.
If this interview is THAT important and hard to get I wouldn’t risk calling in sick.

If you really have to use sick time for your interview do these things: 1. Buy a full fare round trip ticket. Preferably choose an airline that has no connection to your regional (WN, JB, NK, F9, etc). 2. Don't use KCM. Regular security only. 3. Don't wear your uniform/ID badge. Today you are just regular John Q Public.

Calling out sick can be risky but only if you run into the CP or someone who actually knows who you are that may be in management. I'm not saying you should call in sick, but if you have to, just cover your tracks and be smart about it. There really should be no record of you traveling that your airline can legally use to investigate if they became suspicious. My old regional could barely keep the phones working for a full business day so I wouldn't have been worried about them going CSI on me.

FWIW, a few years ago at CPZ, DL had a career fair and a few pilots called out sick. The CPO sent a pretty threatening email that DL agreed to give them names of all the CP pilots that attended the job fair and that they were going to cross reference that with people that called out sick. Delta found out about that email and essentially made CPZ management issue an apology email that they will not and cannot do that. Good luck on the interview.

Don’t get me wrong, I DO wish you the best of luck on your interview.
It would just royally suck if you wouldn’t get a CJO or worse it gets pulled because you called in sick.

There's some grey area on the old bro network. If someone is interested in you for some reason, they might make a phone call. It happens, and while I said almost all regional CP's are understanding, I didn't say ALL of them are understanding... some are big fish in little ponds, others resent the fact that XYZ major rejected them back in '95.

You probably won't get caught, but the consequences are high enough that it's worth trying really hard not to even risk it.

Probably also matters where you are in life... if you're 20-something single, you can take a chance on resigning your old job and then losing the new one. If you're older with a family, it's risky enough just subjecting yourself to new-hire training and probation.

Those of us who have been around are not making up hypothetical scenarios for fun... this stuff has all happened.

Never use KCM, CASS, or nonrev when sick, unless you can easily explain why you were traveling while sick (sometimes you can).

Also typically managers can pull up a list of your IP addresses (and associated location) when you log into company systems (VPN, hint, hint). This is easy, off-the-shelf management tools available today.

How about calling in emergency instead of sick?

Maybe. It's risky though... unlike sick, they can ask for details and second-guess you.

You can call off unavailable at some places. Which is just telling them you cannot be at work, but are not sick. This however could be used as a reason to terminate if you ever get in to an attendance situation with sick calls.