An Analysis of Institutional and Non-Institutional Factors Affecting Naval Aviator Retention

The objective of this thesis is to quantitatively examine the effect of several institutional and non-institutional factors that have traditionally impacted Naval aviator retention. It uses a unique database that includes summarized continuation rate information for pilots from each subcommunity by year group and commissioning source. The effects of varying unemployment rates, air transportation industry hiring rates, aviation continuation pay (ACP) opportunities and changing minimum service requirement (MSR) policies are measured statistically to determine their relative significance in impacting aviator continuation rates. The study analyzed the continuation rate behavior between 1990 and 1996 for aviators in year groups 1984 through 1989. Results from the statistical analysis indicate that institutional factors such as changing MSR policies and ACP availability have a greater impact than non- institutional factors such as unemployment rates and air transportation industry hiring rates. Specifically, recent changes in MSR policies have been successful in increasing continuation rates while ACP has not been successful in increasing retention.Naval Postgraduate School Monterey CA is the author of 'An Analysis of Institutional and Non-Institutional Factors Affecting Naval Aviator Retention' with ISBN 9781423562276 and ISBN 1423562275.