I recently received notice that I will be involuntarily separated from the military due to my conduct. To be more specific, I finished the Navy’s flight school, and then afterwards gave a student in training pictures of the instructor’s version of simulator events. The instructor’s version contains preprogrammed bogey/bandit behaviors, altitudes, and locations, so that’s why student’s aren’t supposed to have access to them. None of this information is classified by any means.
My separation is for Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer, and I will have a General (Under Honorable Conditions) discharge. With this kind of background, will regional/major airlines even bother to consider my application when I get to that point? I’m currently working under an O4 and he’s sympathetic to my situation and said he’d be willing to write a good reference letter in the future. I’m also hoping by going through ATP, I will demonstrate I’m not a dirtbag and can get people to vouch for me.
I guess in the end, should I focus my efforts in another field due to my discharge, or do I still stand a chance to eventually make it to a major?
That’s a tough one. The pilot shortage is rampant and the Regionals are pretty desperate for bodies so I believe you might have a pretty good shot at that. As for a Major they’re not quite as needy, BUT I’m thinking if you have your degree, put some time between your discharge and remain a squeaky clean model citizen you might there to but that’s a gamble. Honestly I’d contact a few Regional recruiters directly, tell them your story and see what they say. They’ll let you know for certain.
I suspect that you would be able to get on at a regional, but I think the majors could very well be out of your reach. There is a pilot shortage and it might someday get to the majors, but there will still be people with perfectly clean records applying. I think being kicked out of the military is going to be a very tough thing to overcome. The best I can suggest is that if the major airlines are your goal, to try to contact their recruiting departments and ask them, or maybe attend some job fairs and ask that way. I would be very leary about spending the money on ATP if your ultimate goal is a major airline.
Thank you for your inputs. As both of you have suggested reaching out to the airline’s recruiting departments, do I just go on their respective careers page and use the email that’s listed on the page?
In the past they wouldn’t even talk to you until you had the required licenses and mins but times have changed dramatically. Yes just go on their website career pages and email, there may even be phone numbers to call directly. You could also look for recruiting events in your area and visit them personally.
I think you will find it rather easy to get a hold of recruiting departments at the regionals and very difficult to do so at the majors. I would co onto their careers page and use the contact information listed, but you might not get very far with the majors.
Jack,
I am a 54 year old private pilot with 2400 hrs who has been following airline pilot life for about a month. I read a post from Chris I believe that encouraged another hopeful pilot to reach out to the recruiting departments. I to have had concerns regarding my decision to pursue what has been a life long passion in aviation. While my concerns are for reasons unrelated to yours I wanted to share what I experienced just this afternoon. I took chris’ advice and I reached out to Horizon Airline’s recruiting department via their career page late yesterday afternoon. To my surprise later that night around 10pm CST I received an email invite to schedule a15 minute phone call with them. Today at 2pm I received a call and spent the next 15-20 minutes discussing the possibility of me being a viable candidate. The first thing I want to convey is just how responsive and genuinely informative they were. Secondly, while this call in no way represented a formal offer or guarantee in any way I learned that they had recently hired a pilot with similar experience and 8 years my senior. I encourage you, pursue your dream until you achieve it or all of the doors shut. Just the opinion of an old guy (in pilot years)
I took your advice and sent emails explaining my situation to about 7 different regional airlines, so I hope to hear back from a couple of them in the following days. I know applying to any regional will be at least 2 years in the future and the hiring landscape could change by then. I also think even if I can’t make it to a major, there are plenty of worse jobs I could be “stuck” at than as a senior captain at a regional. Please let me know, though, if this mentality doesn’t reflect reality or if I’m ignoring key details.
Steven, I’m glad to hear Horizon has such a proactive recruiting department. I also appreciate your kind words, and I am cautiously looking forward to starting my journey to be a airline pilot!
Really depends on you and your goals and expectations. If you read my bio or many of my posts, I frequently say that if I would’ve have remained at the Regionals that would’ve been more than fine. This was a second (actually more like 3rd or 4th) career for me so I started late (at 39). Frankly I had never thought I would be an airline pilot at all so making it to a Regional was a dream control. After a while I had heard good things about Hawaiian and wanted a change of scenery so I put my application in just to see. They were silly enough to hire me but again if they hadn’t I had no desire to go elsewhere and I would’ve spent the rest of my career at ExpressJet.
At Xjt I was a senior Capt with a great schedule. I was also an instructor so I made in the low 6 figures. I got my pick of trips, flew when, where and with who I wanted. Had almost 2mos vacation and was well respected by my peers and the airline. It was a great gig and I miss it often. Trust me in the grand scheme of things being a Regional pilot is not a bad job by any stretch.
You have to keep in mind that a recruiting department is not likely to flat out say “we will not hire you because of this”, so bear that in mind when you get their responses.
A regional is not a bad place to end up, but I think you will find that you will certainly want to be at a major.
To be clear though, I think being involuntary separated from the military for cheating is going to be a big deal no matter what career field you go into.
Adam, thanks for sharing your experience. It does seem like a regional can be a fulfilling career.
Chris, I’d like to just mention that throughout my separation process and talking to the CO who gave me my reprimand, there was no mention of this constituting cheating. Throughout flight school, there was an unspoken expectation that students helped each other however they can. There were some instructors who would willingly share their copies of flight and sim outlines with students and other instructors who would stomp their feet when reviewing test questions to signify which ones would likely show up on the actual test. The expectation was as longs as you could safely fly the plane and sound competent on the radio, you should take advantage of all available resources to pass. I know not to make excuses for my actions, especially during a future interview, but do you think it’d be a good idea to give context so people don’t think this was just some academic dishonesty (i.e. cheating)?
So I am on an interview board and you explain to me that what you were doing was normal behavior, fine. But then my next question is, why were you kicked out of the military is this was standard and why wasn’t everybody else that was doing it kicked out also?
People come on this forum from time to time with questions like yours regarding past behaviors affecting a future career in aviation. Honestly I’m usually less than sympathetic unless I sense some remorse. I’ve never served in the military but I don’t believe they routinely hand out Dishonorable Discharges for minor errors in judgment. Clearly you did something that was offensive enough to get you terminated. It WILL come up in your interview and I can tell you that explaining it like it was a normal practice and for some reason they came down hard on you is not going to go over well. The details are your business but you need to own this.
You guys are right, when the time comes for interview, I don’t plan to make excuses for what happened and instead will show them what I’ve learned since. Regarding my discharge, it isn’t a Dishonorable Discharge, it’s General (Under Honorable Conditions). The hierarchy is Honorable, General, Other than honorable, Bad conduct, and then Dishonorable. I do feel like they came down hard on this, but I know that’s something I’ll keep to myself. There’s other instructors and department heads who have made comparisons to a company firing a guy over “stealing” office pens. Everyone knows things like that happen, but it is still stealing company property and a justifiable reason.
There’s an old saying at the airlines. The ONLY way to get fired as a pilot is to lie, cheat or steal. There’s no stipulation as to the size or degree of the offense. The airlines are literally putting people’s lives in their pilot’s hands and the FAA even stipulates ALL ATP license holders must “have good moral character”. I know a pilot who was fired for stealing toilet paper from a hotel. Does that mean he was a bad pilot or human being? No, but trust is trust and a person either has it or they don’t.
If you notice neither Chris nor I got the least bit preachy until you started trying to minimize/rationalize what happened. Know that in an interview they very well may use words you don’t like or may feel are excessive or even demeaning. How you respond is entirely up to you.