Originally Posted by Mesabah

Military pilots are required to be interviewed, hired, and advanced under the government contractor program. https://www.dol.gov/vets/vets4212.htm
The airlines get hundreds of millions from the government for misc services, including being a standby military transport operation.c

Otherwise, ALPA would require Delta to only hire from other ALPA carriers, which they were able to achieve a certain percentage of in the Delta PWA.