Airline Hiring of Military Pilots

It has long been established that the airlines like to hire former military pilots. For a long time former military pilots made up the vast bulk of commercial airline pilots.  The reason for this extend back to the end of the second world war. During World War II (1939-1945) the United States trained over 250,000 pilots. The government went to great lengths to insure that these candidates were intelligent, educated and in excellent physical condition.  Essentially uncle Sam had fully screened all of these potential future airline pilots. These men then received the best flight training in the world and followed that training with considerable real world experience often in the worst possible conditions.

Following World War II there was an economic boom in the United States and the demand for airline pilots rose. When the existing airline pilots were supplemented by the supply of freshly minted aviators military aviators (who were released in mass by Uncle Sam), a fertile recruiting ground for the airlines resulted. Some of these young men never wanted to see an airplane again and a large number of them went back into non-aviation civilian life; one even went on to become president of United States.  But the others found that the military had given them a vocation and an entire generation of airline pilots was born.

For pilots without military backgrounds the competition was extremely stiff. Many of these pilots spent entire careers toiling in commercial aviation's backwaters for low wages in flying schools, small commuter airlines or freight haulers.  Breaking out of that lower rung of aviation could prove itself to be most difficult.  As Jets started to enter the airlines the demand on pilots became even more stringent. Even the experienced World War II veteran pilots were finding these sleek new planes hard to keep up with.  The air force, navy & marines were ahead of the airlines in jet training so jet qualified military aviators became an even more sought after commodity by the major airlines.  This made it even harder on pilots without a military flying background. As late as the 1970s over 80% of airline pilots were former military pilots.  This trend would continue until well after the Vietnam war which had provided another large cadre of young military veteran aviators.

However, in the mid 1970s there was the beginning of a slow change in the situation.  The increased capability and cost of military aircraft combined with the end of America's involvement in the Vietnam conflict meant that the military would need to do more with less airframes and shrinking training budgets.  This meant less pilots.  This was followed by slowing economic times and the fact that the military had become a better place to make a career.  Many pilots elected to stay in the service until retirement but because of the reduced demand for new airline pilots about 80% of new hires were still coming from the military.  That was a situation which would not last.

The situation really changed in 1978 when the airlines were deregulated throwing the already fluid situation into further turmoil.  Between labor strife and a flailing economy the airlines began to drastically cut wages and benefits.  Now even more young military officers found the Armed Forces a better place to stay.  About this time the ratio of civilian only pilots versus military trained pilots was about 70-30.  This was on the eve of an upcoming wave of retirements from World War II veteran pilots.  Pilots trained by the military between 1941 and 1945 were having to retire between the late 70s and mid 80s.

This created a situation where for the first time since the second world war there were simply not enough military trained pilots to meet the needs of the civilian operators (by this time the proliferation of corporate aviation was adding to the drain on the pool of available pilots).  To help prevent a future exodus of military pilots the Armed Forces began increasing the commitment to undergo pilot training. The commitment had been six years after completing training but was eventually extended to nine years after training.  This put a military officer halfway towards his retirement (and a life time 50% pension) by the time he had finished his commitment to the military. This went a long way toward closing the door on young military pilots for the civilian market.

The military also learned another little trick. The airlines only hire pilots who are proficient and currently flying. The average military pilot only flies between five and seven years before he is given a desk job.  This means that at the end of their nine year commitment they were not current and had usually not flown a plane for at least two years.  This made them far less appealing to the airlines.  Some military pilots actually had to go fly for commuter airlines for a year or two to get recurrent before they were hired by major airlines.

Something else was occurring about this time. Most of the commuter and regional airlines had transition to turbine powered aircraft (mostly turboprops but in some cases jets). By the late 1997 regional jets were starting to become popular.  Advances in regional airline and civilian flight school training programs (to include the use of level D simulators) created an ever increasing pool of civilian pilots who were well trained in jets and fluent in airline operations.

The military was once again getting more capable and even more expensive aircraft but less of them.  This in turn resulted and even fewer pilots being trained. Combined with the increasing number of highly qualified civilian pilots the hiring situation eventually began to reverse itself.  More military pilots were staying in the service for at least 20 years or more civilian pilots were building large amounts of jet time.  It was getting more common to see a 43 year old retired lieutenant colonel in a major airline new hire class than a 28 year-old junior officer.

Today over 60% of pilots hired by major airlines have civilian only experience.  Most of the military officers joining the airlines are either retired or active reservists.  The advancement of unmanned aerial vehicles, the over decade long commitment for military pilot training, improvements in military pay and benefits as airline pay and benefits decline all conspire to help to hold down the number of military pilots available to the airlines. The discussion has already begun about whether to give UAV time some sort of credit on an airline application (at the moment that answer is no, but that may eventually change).  The vast number of experienced jet pilots from the regional airlines have greatly diminished the need for pilots with a military background.

Now that the military trains fewer pilots than it has since the Second World War, there is mathematically no way the military could supply enough pilots for the airlines predicted needs.  The last of the Vietnam era pilots will have to retire by 2015 and there has been no mass military pilot training since 1973.  There is a huge forecast for airline pilots In the next 10 years and there will be an even greater percentage of civilian only pilots in those ranks.