Originally Posted by
Surprise
I have another theory that since roughly half of the new hires are flow-throughs, a good portion of them will have already established families and other roots in DFW or the east coast. So flow-throughs, on average, will probably prefer to be based no farther west than DFW. That leaves military and street hires as people who’d potentially want LAX, and probably not that many. As this group starts to upgrade, I bet LAX will continue to be the junior base.
I’m often wrong though...
I’d wager that a large chunk of military guys want DFW too. Many Air Force pilots get based in TX at some point in their career. There are two UPT bases plus the PIT base, so some meet their wives there. Most become residents for tax purposes, and some are drawn back for taxes or their spouses family.