Originally Posted by
Excargodog
You SERIOUSLY believe that half of AA new hires are going to be military? Really?
Total USAF fixed wing pilot training is only about 1100 a year, including guard and reserve. And the active duty side is about 2000 pilots below their authorized strength. Everybody who isn’t guard or reserve gets a 10 year active duty service commitment start after UPT and considerable bonuses to stay on active duty until retirement.
Realistically, that’s 1000 pilots per year at best SPLIT AMONGST ALL THE MAJORS.
AA alone will be retiring nearly 800 pilots next year who will have to be replaced, assuming no growth, do you seriously think AA will get 400 military pilots - 40% of the whole number - with United, Delta, SWA, Alaska, UPS, FEDEX, and everybody else wanting the same people?
You’ll be fortunate to get 200 military pilots a year in the coming years. The rest will either be OTS hires - which again puts you in competition to everybody else - and the remains of the AA wholly owned regional pilots after everybody else has hired the ones they thought were the best.
That’s reality.
-AA is already getting 40%+ military.
-The Air Force isn't the only service that makes pilots. Between the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army you have a much larger pool. A 1000 military pilot per year pool is inaccurate.
-You may want to check the "considerable bonus" numbers. $25k-35k/year is not considerable. Those Air Force pilots were going to stay in anyways.
Just my opinion, but I believe you will see between 40 and 50% military hires at AA continue for the foreseeable future. There doesn't appear to be any reason that number will change. One reason I could see is if the USAF or other services actually do offer considerable bonuses in the neighborhood of 75k to 100k per year. That would probably get people the stay in vice going to the Airlines.