Do air force pilots get chosen for commercial jobs rather than others?

Question

i want to eventually become a pilot and i either want to go to a university or the air force academy and i was wonderin, if say 5 people apply for a commercial piloting job and one is an AFA graduate, would the AFA grad have a better chance at getting the position than the others?

Answer 1

I have two cousins who served in the USAF, and they were offered employment before they both retired. The people recruiting them knew them both from their air force days and they were both hired immediately upon leaving the military.It saved the airlines a lot of time and expense in trying to hire pilots they knew nothing about. This is only one reason but I believe a big one.

Answer 2

Not necessarily. Only about a third of the commercial pilots out there have prior military flight experience.

Answer 3

Military pilots do seem to get preference for airline jobs, but the reason isn't just because they were in the military, it is more because of the type of experience they get. Most military pilots get substantial flight time in sophisticated high-performance turbine powered aircraft, and they start logging this time pretty much from the beginning of flight training. By contrast, most civilian pilots start out in small, low performance piston powered aircraft and it usually takes several years out of flight school before they can start building "quality flight time" in higher performance turbine airplanes. In general, assuming the civilian pilot also has a 4-year college degree (most military pilots do), it is going to take them longer to build equivalent experience that will make them competetive with the military pilots. There is one other factor that comes into play, and that is how airline applications are evaluated. It is all done via a computer screening process with various points awarded for different types of things. So many points for a college degree, so many points for total flight time, so many points for multi-engine, turbine, pilot-in-command time, etc. In addition, as part of the Equal Opportunities act, all ex-military personnel, whether they were pilots or not, get a couple extra points for having served in the military. Therefore, given two equal candidates regarding age, education, flight experience, and a few other factors, the ex-military applicant will score slightly higher on the airline application.  All this said, some airlines prefer to hire military pilots (especially those with ex-military personnel in upper management), while other companies prefer to hire civilian guys because they often have the "real-world" flying experience and temperment that makes them more desireable as employees. Either way, don't sweat it. Over the next 20 years there will be a large enough pilot shortage that the military guys and gals won't be able to fill all the available positions.

Answer 4

Not really.  It depends on who's on the hiring board at the airline.  If the hiring board is full of ex air force pilots, then you can bet the AF pilot will get the job.  If one of the civilian candidates has an uncle on the hiring board, happens all the time, then you can bet that that person will get the job.

It's all who you know.  What planes you flew, how many hours you have, what airlines you've worked for in the past, what wars you may have flown in, none of that matters at all in this business.  I will say this though, Air Force pilots tend to know a lot of other air force pilots at major airlines.  That tends to help them out with getting interviews.  Same for Navy and Marine pilots.

Military or not, it's possible, but very tough, to have a good career in this business.  If you want to go military, then great, but do it for the right reasons.

Answer 5

More flight training=better job opportunities.  Military experience is looked at very highly in the us.  Many pilots flying commercially have had military experience.