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Old 11-20-2021, 10:17 AM
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crewdawg
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Joined APC: Jul 2006
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Awesome post tnkrdrvr. I didn't come from the AD so my viewpoint is just slightly different, but I'll throw down a few minor additions to your post. There are a few posts buried in here by AlbieF15 who gave a great timeline for AD guys separating. I'll see if I can dig it up.


As a military pilot you have a number of lucrative opportunities available to you besides the airline industry. Don’t be afraid to explore those as well. The airlines aren’t for every family.

Keep stoking those opportunities even if you do go to the airlines. You may be surprised how much free time you'll have available after you get a little seniority. At the very least, you still have contacts just in case we have another big down turn or you have medical issues...or you just don't like the airline life.


Seniority does matter(it’s not everything). The sooner you get that class date, the sooner you can relax and deal with everything else involved in leaving Uncle Sam.

I'll start this off with saying, I understand that there is a caveat to this IF you're getting close to being within 5 years of an AGR retirement...that's a BIG factor.

I really wanted to hit on the above bolded. I've dealt with this in my Guard squadron and it's worse amongst the guys that recently came off AD, as they truly don't grasp what seniority means. As you say, it's not everything, but it's a HUGE factor. I tell these guys all the time, that if you're even considering going to the airlines, do it NOW. Every year you delay is costing you hundreds, if not thousands of seniority numbers, which is costing you LOTS of QOL and money. They can always quit later if they decide it's not for them, but they can't get those seniority numbers back. I had some buddies who were way more qualified than I, that kept delaying before finally deciding to apply. They're now 2k+ numbers junior and our QOL/pay are significantly different. My SQ/CC (not an airline guy at the time) when I was hired at DAL didn't understand me cancelling an IPUG class date to take the first available indoc class. Fast forward 5ish years and he's now at an airline...chatting over a few drinks recently, he said he now fully understands it. I've flown with a set of twins at DAL who separated from AD 3 months apart and were hired at NWA and DAL...they're now over 2000 numbers apart on the list. One spent and entire decade as a WB Capt while the other was stuck as a NB Capt. Extreme example due to a merger, but we have no idea what the future holds.
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