This, and the overall level of compensation is crap.

Back in 2000, you could walk out of your military gig, into a job that paid six figures in 3 years working less than half the month. With a fully paid pension and health care. You'd be nuts to walk away from that.

But the thing that the military brings to applicants that most civil guys don't have (and I AM a civil guy, this is props to my Mil bros) is that by the time they retire/separate from the military, they are pretty much qualified "middle managment", and can step in to almost any role needing that kind of person, whether it's an airline, power plant or even a carpet factory (assuming there are any left in the US).

With a little elbow grease, they can be making as much, if not more, than the current compensation the airlines provide without ANY of the uncertainty, without any of that yukky labor/union stuff and can be "their own man" with a completely portable skill set that you can use to ratchet up your compensation regardless if your company succeeds or goes bankrupt.

So the real question is "why would ANYONE in the military even bother with the airlines?".

Nu