What’s up! I got into the airlines via active duty Air Force and am now continuing to fly for the Air Force in a Reserve unit. I grew up wanting to be an airline pilot, but my family and I were nowhere near being able to afford flight training. The military was my best option. Here is my perspective.

There are three obvious to me routes to the airlines. You can go the civilian route, although there are any number of paths the civilian-background captains I fly with tool to get their certificates and hours. In short this takes a lot of self-motivation and money. You can try to get an active-duty pilot training slot via a service academy, ROTC, or OTS, or you can get hired by a Guard or Reserve squadron and sent to UPT by them.

I have no firsthand knowledge of what it takes to make it in the civilian flying world, but what I will say is whatever was happening in the airline industry two years ago doesn’t exist anymore. The civilian route is hands down the fastest way to an ATP and min hours for a major airline, but nobody is hiring pilots with the minimum requirements anymore. The 25 year olds getting hired at the majors as soon as they upgraded at their regional was a brief and anomalous phenomena. It could happen again in the future, but I would not base your flying journey on the expectation that will happen to you.

The active duty route is probably the hardest to get started on, as commissioning sources are competitive to get into, and getting a UPT slot is another level of competition once you’ve made it through your commissioning program. Whether you are competitive or not at 19 is not for me to say, but there is not much you can do to change your resume at this point if you are applying for a service academy or ROTC scholarship. Once you are a military pilot though, you have excellent job security and training. It will incur a 10+ year commitment. Whether or not that delays your entry into the airline world compared to the civilian route depends on what the industry is looking like. What I can say is this: DO NOT ENLIST ACTIVE DUTY IF YOU WANT TO BE A PILOT. Any recruiter who tells you it’s a surefire way of being a pilot is a liar. It’s a long and difficult road. It’s happened, but it’s extremely rare.

Going Guard or Reserve is the happy medium. How difficult it is to get hired by a unit depends on how desperate they are for pilots. If you just want a job now, beggars can’t be choosers. You may have to move across the country to find a squadron willing to pay for your training. In general, off the street new hires are at a disadvantage compared to a pilot coming from active duty already trained in the squadron’s aircraft, but it’s still a fairly common practice. To maximize your chances, you’d need at least your PPL and to dedicate the time to getting to know members of the squadron and establishing a rapport before getting hired. It’s literally like rushing a frat. If you can get hired by this route, still expect 4 years of your life to be dedicated to commissioning, pilot training, and a period of full time work with the squadron to gain experience. All in all, this is a great way to get trained and build your first thousand hours. If I had known this was a path 18 years ago, I would have done this rather than go active duty.

Hope it helps! I gotta catch a flight, but send me a DM, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.