Interesting..........., purely on the basis that I experienced this first hand albeit not with the author.
At a certain sand infested place in Qatar it was a well known fact that the movers (both branches) "retained" seats on the C17's coming home in order to look after their own so they would not have the nause of waiting for the trooper and lengthy stops elsewhere in the med and europe on the way home.
When this was discovered the unofficial official solution was to talk to the crew of the mil jet to see if there was bang on board and whether we could go home supernumary (IAW all mil regs and aviation law I'm afraid demonsmaystray). We were operating dets 4 weeks on 3 weeks off for over 18 months so transit to and from the pit was a factor - especially when it was taking 46-58 hours to get home, and especially when the movers were holding seats for movers at the end of their 1 OOA that year.
It was due to the frequency of the dets that detachment aircrew were given priority status, and when that priority status was denied due to the movers looking after their mates rather than focussing on a factual and necessary operational requirement, it raised more than a few hackles.
I believe a very concise letter to the head shed mover via the AOC and subsequently the ACC led to this practice of "denial" of priority seats being ended rather sharpish.
As a further aside, I was left absolutely incredulous as an aircraft Captain when I, by absolute chance, overheard a pax brief from the movers team that had incorrectly loaded my jet which led to a 4 hr delay. The Sgt mover stated that the delay was due to the crew not crewing in on time. A quick chat with the DAMO and then my Sqn Boss saw a very sharpish one way chat to the SAMO from the Staish, quickly followed by another pax brief from the SAMO.
You really don't help yourselves.