Eh, I'm not so sure that'll happen. Military pilots aren't getting as many hours as they used to, plus it's actually a pay drop for them to leave and work for an airliner the way it is right now.
Right now the airlines have managed to talk high school grads into taking out huge student loans and drop 100K+ on a for-profit school, then take a job making ~ 20. There's no way that's sustainable though.
Actually, the air force is paying out the ass to get high-TiG o-3s/ low-TiG o-4s to reenlist. Like, a $20k to $30k reenlistment bonus (that's tax free and on top of their salary of roughly $70k, not counting their BAH, which can be another $10k to more than $40k (it's $2500/month if you're an o-3 getting a master's at the naval post graduate school in monterey), also tax free). The reason they're not able to keep those pilots without the bonuses is because the airlines are offering starting salaries for those pilots around $90 to $100k; the bonus is designed to make the military pay roughly commensurate after BAH is included.
Interestingly, though, the navy is has a glut of pilots right now.
Basically. It's kind of like how if you go to the right college for CS you can go directly to software engineer without having to spend years in IT or QA or working on your own side projects for fun, before finding someone who will pay you to be a software engineer, let alone someone like google or apple.
The major airlines love, love, love military pilots, especially ones that muster out around o-3, o-4 because they are in their late 20s/early 30s (lots of years left before mandatory retirement), they are already completely trained, have tons of time flying planes (compared to civilian pilots of the same age), and they are almost overqualified for ferrying passengers in terms of abilities/skills.
I've always heard that FedEx and Southwest are the absolute best employers for pilots, and the regional carriers (who I was primarily talking about earlier) are the absolute worst.
No real idea on how accurate that is, just stuff I've overheard in pilot lounges at airports :)
Right now the airlines have managed to talk high school grads into taking out huge student loans and drop 100K+ on a for-profit school, then take a job making ~ 20. There's no way that's sustainable though.