Gary Leff writes, apropos my post yesterday:
Eugene’s counterexample [of military flyers going to work for the airlines] is better than he realizes, because in fact military charter work is very common. American Trans Air alone did over $200 million in military charter business in 2003. Forbes attributes an increase in military charter work as one of the key factors in Continental Airlines 6% increase in revenue in 2003. It’s the biggest reason why once bankrupt World Airways is again profitable.
And in fact we do try to keep the airlines from hiring these pilots away — by offering significant bonuses (up to $100k) for pilot re-enlistment.
At the same time, it’s worth remembering that one of the reasons we’re able to attract so many people into the military to become pilots in the first place is that it’s a route to future civilian success. There are basically two routes to flying for a major airline: military experience or years of flying for small commuter carriers (where the pay is generally less than $30,000/yr and can be less than even $20,000).
The future rewards for a major carrier commercial pilot make both a large pool of potential pilots available and available at lower prices than they could otherwise be attracted at. In other words, the future private sector rewards subsidize a lower military employment cost.
So if the analogy works, then it undermines the argument to which I was responding — Mark Kleiman’s argument against the government’s hiring contract security services (“The private firms pay better than the regular military, and are using the money they get from public contracts to bid away experienced soldiers, leaving the Army short of skilled bodies. Why should we compete with ourselves in that way? Recall that the skills that ex-Seals and Delta Force grads sell to the private outfits were acquired at public expense.”) As I suggested, the availability of such post-service jobs might mean some accelerated loss of good people at the end of their enlistment (and remember that they’ve done the term of duty that they promised to the government), but a gain of good people at the beginning.
UPDATE: I also got a bunch of other e-mails on the subject, mostly in general agreement with this; thanks to everyone for writing, and sorry that I couldn’t respond individually.
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