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Flying at SWA on Military Orders

Flying at SWA on Military Orders

July 18, 2025 | Email, Steve Stilwell, Military

Can I fly at SWA while on long-term active-duty orders? My commander and JAG say it’s okay.

 

The SWAPA Military Committee has received this question a lot over the years. To get straight to the point, we strongly recommend that you do not fly or concurrently work at Southwest Airlines, aka “moonlight," while on long-term military orders. This practice has recently drawn renewed interest and scrutiny from the Company and may lead to discipline, up to termination. 

 

Yes, it is true that the Company has varied its position about a moonlighting policy over the years. But to be perfectly clear, we expect SWA to put a policy in the next Military Handbook that prohibits moonlighting for periods of service of 31 days or greater. New policies prohibiting moonlighting are not just exclusively at SWA, other airlines are doing the same. There may be a few exceptions to this policy, such as military terminal leave or a DOD SkillBridge program, and we will follow up on that when we know more.

 

What exactly is moonlighting? It's slang that describes a situation when you go on long-term military orders, 31 days or greater, and continue to work at your civilian employer on your time off from the military.  

 

On the surface, the concept probably appeals to most people. Moonlighting is especially enticing to a Pilot, because you can stay current in the airplane, reduce training costs, avoid time away from family, balance two careers, and give yourself the opportunity for more income. However, below the surface, moonlighting has been part of issues that are now leading to anticipated pivots in Company policy.  

 

For over two decades, CAPT Sam Wright, USN (Ret.), an Attorney and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) expert, has advised against moonlighting and has published multiple articles like “Don’t Try To Work at your Civilian Job while on Active Duty” (Law Reviews 102, 16004, 18029, and 23015). CAPT Wright’s work and thousands of other USERRA articles are available on the Reserve Organization of America (ROA) Law Library website. One of CAPT Wright’s main concerns is that if you are on active duty and simultaneously working at your civilian employer, you may not meet the following conditions to be entitled to your USERRA Reemployment Rights.

 

USERRA REEMPLOYMENT RIGHTS

 

"You have the right to be reemployed in your civilian job if you leave that job to perform service in the uniformed service and:

 

  • you ensure that your employer receives advance written or verbal notice of your service;
  • you have five years or less of cumulative service in the uniformed services while with that particular employer;
  • you return to work or apply for reemployment in a timely manner after conclusion of service; and
  • you have not been separated from service with a disqualifying discharge or under other than honorable conditions.
  • If you are eligible to be reemployed, you must be restored to the job and benefits you would have attained if you had not been absent due to military service or, in some cases, a comparable job."

 

The key takeaway is that if you want to maintain your SWA currency, we recommend that you simply follow the USERRA conditions mentioned above and fly at SWA during a break between long-term military orders. 

 

We also want to emphasize a few other things.

 

When you apply for reemployment after a period of service of more than 30 days, the employer has the right to ask you to provide documentation to establish that you are eligible for reemployment per USERRA 1002.121. You can find a list of documents that will satisfy the request in USERRA 1002.123.

 

While USERRA does not require you to provide documentation for periods of service of 30 days or less, DOD Instruction 1205.12 allows civilian employers to circumvent USERRA and verify any of your periods of service via your respective reserve component.

 

The reason we bring up the latter is because the Flight Ops Military Liaison (FOML) has recently made it a common practice to contact your respective service component and request that they verify your periods of service. Normally, the FOML will notify you via email that they are going to verify your periods of service. If you receive one of these emails, please let the SWAPA Military Committee know. Per the Military Handbook 3.k., “during the course of an investigation that could lead to discipline, reasonable efforts will be made to notify the Pilot beforehand.”

 

We strongly recommend that you have a preemptive conversation with your chain of command, keep records of your travel, rest, periods of service, and take notes on anything abnormal that may have happened. We have an excel spreadsheet, SWAPA USERRA Five-Year Floor Tracker, on the SWAPA.org Military Committee site, and there are also third-party apps such as MilDrills, which are excellent.  

 

On a related note, if you disagree with how another SWAPA Pilot is managing his or her military service and their duties at Southwest, please call the SWAPA Military Committee at 214-722-4202 or Professional Standards at 214-722-4245. As SWAPA President Jody Reven recently wrote in an email to the membership, please address any perceived issues with your fellow Pilots first, then with the Union, and only with the Company as a last resort. You would want them to do the same if it was your career and integrity that was being questioned.

 

Finally, we leave you with this quote from CAPT Wright, taken from his Law Review Article 106, “If you are on full-time active duty, voluntarily or involuntarily, you should be devoting your full time and attention to your military duties. The whole point of USERRA, as well as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), is to remove civilian legal distractions in order to enable you to do your military duties.”

 

Cheers,

 

Steve Stilwell

military@swapa.org

314-799-4831

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