The Air Force has selected 16,506 airmen for promotion to staff sergeant -- the largest class of selectees since 2002, less than a year after the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

The Air Force Personnel Center's Facebook page says that 42.25 percent of the 39,064 promotion-eligible senior airmen were selected for E-5. That is the highest selection rate since 2011, when the selection rate hit 42.7 percent.

The 2016 selection rate is also far higher than the 33.8 percent rate last year, and the 25.59 selection rate in 2014. That 2014 rate was the lowest since at least 2000.

The actual number of 2016 selectees is up more than 3,000 from 2015, when 13,269 senior airmen earned another stripe, and 75 percent more than the 9,403 airmen promoted in 2014, the recent low.

The last time the number of selectees was higher was in 2002, when 19,448 airmen were selected, a 62.98 percent rate. The Air Force also promoted 20,793, 64.63 percent of the eligible senior airmen, in 2001, and 19,605 in 2000, a 50.72 percent rate.

AFPC will release the list of selectees Thursday morning, according to the AFPC web site. Selectees will begin sewing on Sept. 1.

Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.

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