With a new session of Congress, a group of bipartisan senators introduced legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65.

The legislation entitled the "Let Experienced Fly Act", backed by industry groups including the Regional Airline Association (RAA) would provide some relief to the current pilot shortage particularly the shortage of airline captains.

Bill mentions 324 U.S. airports have lost an average of one-third of their air service and 53 airports have lost more than half of their air service, while 14 airports have lost all flights in recent years.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 023-03-21/

One of the last vestiges of age discrimination left in the United States.

I am still flying, way over 70, just not in Part 121 operations….this harkens back to the Najeeb Halaby days of the FAA. It’s time for it to go.

If they do this they need to add a cognitive test to the medical requirements ….while experience matters so does being able to maintain situational awareness.

I did a lot of training in my career and saw the mental decline after 60.

yeah, folks. retire at 65. let the next generation earn a living.
yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

want to keep flying? get a sport pilot license and a sleek Sling HighWing to fly around. But not in Part 121 operations.
if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making. neither one qualifies you to continue sitting in a pilot seat commanding a vessel with 100+ souls in it for an additional 2 years beyond a reasonable retirement age.

friendly forum and I'm expressing my very strong objection to the extension of the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots. might consider my stance severe and my reasons capricious and arbitrary, but none the less it's my very strong opinion and I'm sharing it without regret.

Why is Congress involved? Why doesn't this follow normal FAA rule making procedures?

Pilots can go fly part 135 after 65, that would help those small communities losing air service, no?

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

yeah, folks. retire at 65. let the next generation earn a living.
yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

want to keep flying? get a sport pilot license and a sleek Sling HighWing to fly around. But not in Part 121 operations.
if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making. neither one qualifies you to continue sitting in a pilot seat commanding a vessel with 100+ souls in it for an additional 2 years beyond a reasonable retirement age.

friendly forum and I'm expressing my very strong objection to the extension of the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots. might consider my stance severe and my reasons capricious and arbitrary, but none the less it's my very strong opinion and I'm sharing it without regret.

Arbitrary, uninformed, rude and completely incorrect.

LAXintl wrote:

With a new session of Congress, a group of bipartisan senators introduced legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65.

The legislation entitled the "Let Experienced Fly Act", backed by industry groups including the Regional Airline Association (RAA) would provide some relief to the current pilot shortage particularly the shortage of airline captains.

Bill mentions 324 U.S. airports have lost an average of one-third of their air service and 53 airports have lost more than half of their air service, while 14 airports have lost all flights in recent years.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 023-03-21/

Have unions taken a stand on this yet? I'd see them opposing and industry organizations like Airlines4America in support.

SumChristianus wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

With a new session of Congress, a group of bipartisan senators introduced legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65.

The legislation entitled the "Let Experienced Fly Act", backed by industry groups including the Regional Airline Association (RAA) would provide some relief to the current pilot shortage particularly the shortage of airline captains.

Bill mentions 324 U.S. airports have lost an average of one-third of their air service and 53 airports have lost more than half of their air service, while 14 airports have lost all flights in recent years.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 023-03-21/

Have unions taken a stand on this yet? I'd see them opposing and industry organizations like Airlines4America in support.

Kirby was against it last year: https://www.flyingmag.com/would-allowin ... a-mistake/

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making.

Talk to those guys and gals who were 55+ when Eastern, Pan Am, TWA, ATA, Champion, World Airways, Aloha, North American, Comair, Ryan International, Challenge Cargo, Independence Air, Compass, et cetera went belly-up. Economic conditions and poor airline management have little to do with your career choices. No new hire has a crystal ball, and, age 67 is not the age 67 of ages past, which is the archaic nature of this restrictive rule.

RetiredNWA wrote:

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

yeah, folks. retire at 65. let the next generation earn a living.
yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

want to keep flying? get a sport pilot license and a sleek Sling HighWing to fly around. But not in Part 121 operations.
if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making. neither one qualifies you to continue sitting in a pilot seat commanding a vessel with 100+ souls in it for an additional 2 years beyond a reasonable retirement age.

friendly forum and I'm expressing my very strong objection to the extension of the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots. might consider my stance severe and my reasons capricious and arbitrary, but none the less it's my very strong opinion and I'm sharing it without regret.

Arbitrary, uninformed, rude and completely incorrect.

You spent your entire career moving up because people ahead of you retired then you think those at the top deserve extra years there, to the detriment of everyone below them?

Stealing years and hundreds of thousands of dollars from more junior pilots. Most selfish mindset that exists in aviation.

RetiredNWA wrote:

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making.

Talk to those guys and gals who were 55+ when Eastern, Pan Am, TWA, ATA, Champion, World Airways, Aloha, North American, Comair, Ryan International, Challenge Cargo, Independence Air, Compass, et cetera went belly-up. Economic conditions and poor airline management have little to do with your career choices. No new hire has a crystal ball, and, age 67 is not the age 67 of ages past, which is the archaic nature of this restrictive rule.

Cry me a river. Everyone has good and bad careers and its mostly the luck of the draw. Your career's bad luck or bad decisions are not the responsibility of others.

mikejepp wrote:

RetiredNWA wrote:

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

yeah, folks. retire at 65. let the next generation earn a living.
yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

want to keep flying? get a sport pilot license and a sleek Sling HighWing to fly around. But not in Part 121 operations.
if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making. neither one qualifies you to continue sitting in a pilot seat commanding a vessel with 100+ souls in it for an additional 2 years beyond a reasonable retirement age.

friendly forum and I'm expressing my very strong objection to the extension of the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots. might consider my stance severe and my reasons capricious and arbitrary, but none the less it's my very strong opinion and I'm sharing it without regret.

Arbitrary, uninformed, rude and completely incorrect.

You spent your entire career moving up because people ahead of you retired then you think those at the top deserve extra years there, to the detriment of everyone below them?

Stealing years and hundreds of thousands of dollars from more junior pilots. Most selfish mindset that exists in aviation.

Not to mention the guys at the top now were hired under the assumption of 60. So they’ve already gotten five extra from original expectations.

RetiredNWA wrote:

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

yeah, folks. retire at 65. let the next generation earn a living.
yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

want to keep flying? get a sport pilot license and a sleek Sling HighWing to fly around. But not in Part 121 operations.
if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making. neither one qualifies you to continue sitting in a pilot seat commanding a vessel with 100+ souls in it for an additional 2 years beyond a reasonable retirement age.

friendly forum and I'm expressing my very strong objection to the extension of the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots. might consider my stance severe and my reasons capricious and arbitrary, but none the less it's my very strong opinion and I'm sharing it without regret.

Arbitrary, uninformed, rude and completely incorrect.

Please do tell how. Because your rejecting argument is "[a]rbitrary, uninformed, rude and completely incorrect".

Should roll back to 60. Start early, retire early

Gads. This is a tough one.
I think there's little doubt that physical condition and medical care of older people is superior than in the past.
But.... I am not certain that the far less concrete measures of cognition/brain function have changed as have the rest of the body.

I don't think pilot shortage should be a consideration for change or not.

The standard retirement age for Americans born after 1960 is 67, so I don't see a reason why it should be any different for us pilots.
So long as folks maintain their proficiency and health and desire to work until 67, so let them.

I'll preface this by saying that the forthcoming post is written from *my own* point of view; I haven't seen my own situation brought up here so I'm adding it to the discussion in with the hope of helping everyone else formulate their opinion on the issue at hand.

SO...

As a junior pilot at a major US air carrier (who just got hired and hopes to stay the rest of my career with my current company) I'm opposed to raising the retirement age. I've been told by other people who were in the business when it was raised from 60 to 65 that a lot of folks' careers were essentially put on hold for 5 years; definitely not something you want if you're trying to build seniority and insulate yourself from furloughs and layoffs (Admittedly I'm not sure the job market will ever be quite as thin as it was in the 2000s, as the supply of military pilots is starting to dry up and COVID removed *a lot* of senior old-timers from the business).

In any case it's still not comforting to know that the folks at the top will essentially get carte blanche to stay where they are (furlough-proof) for 2 years while you spend the same 2 years stagnating in seniority worrying about whether or not you'll be able to keep your job, house, and continue feeding your young family if the economy takes a dive.

The funniest part is that legislators clearly don't understand that a 65 year old pilot is essentially useless from a "keep flights flying" perspective; all the super senior folks I've known of spent their last couple years at airlines doing stuff like flying a PHX-HNL turn once a month, then dividing the remaining 29 days evenly between their boat, RV, and golf course. I'm not saying that high seniority pilots don't deserve this type of lifestyle, but you can't argue that it's particularly productive. Does anyone actually think that letting these folks do this for another 2 years will solve the shortage? All extending the retirement age does is gift the super senior pilots an opportunity to line their pockets with 350k+/yr for 2 more years while barely working at all.

IHMO (can't stress that enough) if Congress really wants to please their constituents and prevent flight cancellations for lack of pilots, they should keep the retirement age where it is to allow turnover to continue and allow the more junior folks to keep coming in- in terms of flights operated, we're doing more work and carrying more pax than senior pilots who rarely fly.

UA735WL wrote:

I'll preface this by saying that the forthcoming post is written from *my own* point of view; I haven't seen my own situation brought up here so I'm adding it to the discussion in with the hope of helping everyone else formulate their opinion on the issue at hand.

SO...

As a junior pilot at a major US air carrier (who just got hired and hopes to stay the rest of my career with my current company) I'm opposed to raising the retirement age. I've been told by other people who were in the business when it was raised from 60 to 65 that a lot of folks' careers were essentially put on hold for 5 years; definitely not something you want if you're trying to build seniority and insulate yourself from furloughs and layoffs (Admittedly I'm not sure the job market will ever be quite as thin as it was in the 2000s, as the supply of military pilots is starting to dry up and COVID removed *a lot* of senior old-timers from the business).

In any case it's still not comforting to know that the folks at the top will essentially get carte blanche to stay where they are (furlough-proof) for 2 years while you spend the same 2 years stagnating in seniority worrying about whether or not you'll be able to keep your job, house, and continue feeding your young family if the economy takes a dive.

The funniest part is that legislators clearly don't understand that a 65 year old pilot is essentially useless from a "keep flights flying" perspective; all the super senior folks I've known of spent their last couple years at airlines doing stuff like flying a PHX-HNL turn once a month, then dividing the remaining 29 days evenly between their boat, RV, and golf course. I'm not saying that high seniority pilots don't deserve this type of lifestyle, but you can't argue that it's particularly productive. Does anyone actually think that letting these folks do this for another 2 years will solve the shortage? All extending the retirement age does is gift the super senior pilots an opportunity to line their pockets with 350k+/yr for 2 more years while barely working at all.

IHMO (can't stress that enough) if Congress really wants to please their constituents and prevent flight cancellations for lack of pilots, they should keep the retirement age where it is to allow turnover to continue and allow the more junior folks to keep coming in- in terms of flights operated, we're doing more work and carrying more pax than senior pilots who rarely fly.

To play devils advocate, how is the 65 year old captain any different than the 75 year old flight attendant blocking a junior FA from getting off reserve sooner and that’s been allowed for decades?

Some people just love their job and want to keep working. There’s lots of 67 year olds out there in much better shape than 50 year olds.

Dominion301 wrote:

UA735WL wrote:

I'll preface this by saying that the forthcoming post is written from *my own* point of view; I haven't seen my own situation brought up here so I'm adding it to the discussion in with the hope of helping everyone else formulate their opinion on the issue at hand.

SO...

As a junior pilot at a major US air carrier (who just got hired and hopes to stay the rest of my career with my current company) I'm opposed to raising the retirement age. I've been told by other people who were in the business when it was raised from 60 to 65 that a lot of folks' careers were essentially put on hold for 5 years; definitely not something you want if you're trying to build seniority and insulate yourself from furloughs and layoffs (Admittedly I'm not sure the job market will ever be quite as thin as it was in the 2000s, as the supply of military pilots is starting to dry up and COVID removed *a lot* of senior old-timers from the business).

In any case it's still not comforting to know that the folks at the top will essentially get carte blanche to stay where they are (furlough-proof) for 2 years while you spend the same 2 years stagnating in seniority worrying about whether or not you'll be able to keep your job, house, and continue feeding your young family if the economy takes a dive.

The funniest part is that legislators clearly don't understand that a 65 year old pilot is essentially useless from a "keep flights flying" perspective; all the super senior folks I've known of spent their last couple years at airlines doing stuff like flying a PHX-HNL turn once a month, then dividing the remaining 29 days evenly between their boat, RV, and golf course. I'm not saying that high seniority pilots don't deserve this type of lifestyle, but you can't argue that it's particularly productive. Does anyone actually think that letting these folks do this for another 2 years will solve the shortage? All extending the retirement age does is gift the super senior pilots an opportunity to line their pockets with 350k+/yr for 2 more years while barely working at all.

IHMO (can't stress that enough) if Congress really wants to please their constituents and prevent flight cancellations for lack of pilots, they should keep the retirement age where it is to allow turnover to continue and allow the more junior folks to keep coming in- in terms of flights operated, we're doing more work and carrying more pax than senior pilots who rarely fly.

To play devils advocate, how is the 65 year old captain any different than the 75 year old flight attendant blocking a junior FA from getting off reserve sooner and that’s been allowed for decades?

Some people just love their job and want to keep working. There’s lots of 67 year olds out there in much better shape than 50 year olds.

The difference is the playing field is no longer level for the pilots (to my knowledge no such rule governing retirement age exists for flight attendents); the senior person (in this case) is essentially benefiting from an outside manipulation of the rules that will not be repeated (or at least can't be reasonably expected to be repeated) when the junior person is in the same position.

I agree with you about physical condition; my father is 68 and still works with his hands remodeling houses and the like every day; not because he needs the money, but because he enjoys the work. Some of his friends close to his age are unable to even walk properly. Hell, some of them are dead.

The point I'm trying to make is that allowing pilots to stay until 67 will be less helpful with regard to easing the pilot shortage (the entire reason the proposal exists in the first place) than letting the system continue to run its course.

How many pilots who are 65 will *actually* want to stay, and disrupt their (doubtlessly already planned for decades) retirement? Of those, how many will actually be able to continue to hold a medical certificate? Of THOSE, how many will do anything but continue to fly the bare minimum?

There are thousands of younger pilots itching to make the leap into flying jets. Anyone who's been an airline pilot knows that it's a front loaded career, perhaps more so than any other. If Congress wants to help ease the pilot crunch, they'd be better served by letting the older & less productive pilots go and therefore increasing the proportion of junior pilots who fly more demanding schedules.

How does limiting the number of pilots increase the number of flights flown? There are really two strategies to fix the problem: reduce the barrier to entry or reduce the artificially low age cap. Exiting pilots benefit the most from the current situation, and a change in either direction is going to be personally negative to you (but good for consumers).

It's not so much a pilot shortage or...."Airline Captain" shortage as suggested up-top..... It's a pay/work rules shortage. Go back 20 years, the pay hasn't changed all that much when factoring cost of living increases. And you're gone half the month from family in the first 10 years, unlike most careers outside the military. Is this a viable career in light of AA and UA trying so hard to slow roll new pilot contracts?
Pay the pilots, improve the work rules, and there will be no shortage of pilots. imho..... And no to age 67. Some can barely cross the line at 65.

I’d say that more than anything, a cognitive skills test would be helpful. I’ve noticed that one of the hallmarks of reaching “that age” is an inability to realize that the time has come to take a knee and step aside due to diminishing skills and abilities.

mikejepp wrote:

RetiredNWA wrote:

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

if you are not fit financially to retire by 65 after a career as a commerical airplane pilot it's probably due to two possibilities: 1 poor health limiting your work 2 poor decision making.

Talk to those guys and gals who were 55+ when Eastern, Pan Am, TWA, ATA, Champion, World Airways, Aloha, North American, Comair, Ryan International, Challenge Cargo, Independence Air, Compass, et cetera went belly-up. Economic conditions and poor airline management have little to do with your career choices. No new hire has a crystal ball, and, age 67 is not the age 67 of ages past, which is the archaic nature of this restrictive rule.

Cry me a river. Everyone has good and bad careers and its mostly the luck of the draw. Your career's bad luck or bad decisions are not the responsibility of others.

You should learn some compassion, try empathy and be a bit more open-minded. No particular career deserves an arbitrary age restriction, proven time and time again by State and Federal Courts. Airline Pilots are the exception to the rule, which dates back nearly a century when airline pilots and military pilots were both required to retire from flight status at Age 60. The particular thrust and tone of your comments suggest you feel strongly against an increase in the retirement age for airline pilots. Please elaborate on how career "bad luck" impacts a pilot who is retiring from military service at age 59 1/2 and wishes to embark on an airline career for several years? Where's the bad luck or poor career planning?? Elaborate further on how "career bad luck" or "bad decisions" impacted a pilot who, for instance: was furloughed by Eastern in 1989, hired by TWA in 1991, furloughed by AA in 2001, hired by ATA in 2003, furloughed, and hired by Ryan International in 2006, only to be left unemployed in 2012 at age 55? Not everyone finds that golden ticket hidden in the Willy Wonka box that makes every airliners.net poster a United Airlines 777 Captain by age 19. As we used to say: "Get a grip, buddy!"

Yet another "rule" imposed by Congress that merely kicks the can down the road 2 more years. Every time there is a shortage of pilots (or at least a shortage of people willing to do the job), Congress throws a bandaid on the problem and wipes their hands of it. We will then go 2 more years down the road and shocker, there is yet another "shortage". It seems the regulators will never get it... there is a shortage of pilots because of the cost of education and the obstacles put in the way of new pilots to earn a livable wage. Recently, the pay has started to catch up at the regional level, but it really hasn't kept pace at the mid level.

Small cities aren't losing air service because there is a pilot shortage, it's because those airlines have decided that they can't make money serving these cities anymore. Do you think they would cut service to a city they were raking in the money on? It's just an excuse, (like Covid for every other commercial woe in the world), that the airlines use to justify ending service. I find it humorous that Congress thinks this will solve the problem, considering the high absentee rate of pilots in their 60's already! It will be great for those that want to rake in some extra money working one trip a month and using their full sick leave every year until 67 though.

I feel for the regional guys/gals because I was there when 65 was enacted... stagnating everyone for 5 years, only to have the same problem occur all over again. It will just drag the problem out, but that's really all Congress is good at these days. I'm sure A4A and their member airlines cannot wait for this to be enacted though; more money for them and less time spent on fixing the real problem.

UPlog wrote:

The standard retirement age for Americans born after 1960 is 67, so I don't see a reason why it should be any different for us pilots.
So long as folks maintain their proficiency and health and desire to work until 67, so let them.

You can work just not as a part 121 pilot.

Where does this end, the retirement age was 60 now it's 65 and people are pushing to raise it to 67. If 67 gets passed there would then be a push in a few years to raise it to 70. At some point you have to draw a line in the sand and say no, no more and I think 65 is an appropriate age for part 121 pilots to retire.

And it's not just pilots I think there should be an age limit on FA's, I just flew to FRA from ORD nonstop on UA in Polaris. There wasn't a single FA on board less than 60 years old and the FA's up front in Polaris where I was sitting they were all 80+ years of age one was shaking while pouring hot coffee. If there had been an emergency that required an evacuation I highly doubt she would be able to help anyone evacuate.

The aviation industry is unique in that you have hundreds of customers lives in your hand. Continually raising the retirement age for part 121 pilots is not the way forward. Every pilots knows when they start training from their very first flight the clock is ticking and if their end goal is to become a part 121 pilots they know they must retire at 65.

Let it be, it’s not like they’re kicking you out of the cockpit. Just telling you to slide to another one that isn’t an airline. Try being a controller and being forced out at 56. I knew it, signed up for it, and now I live with it. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it…

Dominion301 wrote:

To play devils advocate, how is the 65 year old captain any different than the 75 year old flight attendant blocking a junior FA from getting off reserve sooner and that’s been allowed for decades?

The difference is that the Captain is in charge of an airplane.

UA735WL wrote:

I'll preface this by saying that the forthcoming post is written from *my own* point of view; I haven't seen my own situation brought up here so I'm adding it to the discussion in with the hope of helping everyone else formulate their opinion on the issue at hand.

SO...

As a junior pilot at a major US air carrier (who just got hired and hopes to stay the rest of my career with my current company) I'm opposed to raising the retirement age. I've been told by other people who were in the business when it was raised from 60 to 65 that a lot of folks' careers were essentially put on hold for 5 years; definitely not something you want if you're trying to build seniority and insulate yourself from furloughs and layoffs (Admittedly I'm not sure the job market will ever be quite as thin as it was in the 2000s, as the supply of military pilots is starting to dry up and COVID removed *a lot* of senior old-timers from the business).

In any case it's still not comforting to know that the folks at the top will essentially get carte blanche to stay where they are (furlough-proof) for 2 years while you spend the same 2 years stagnating in seniority worrying about whether or not you'll be able to keep your job, house, and continue feeding your young family if the economy takes a dive.

The funniest part is that legislators clearly don't understand that a 65 year old pilot is essentially useless from a "keep flights flying" perspective; all the super senior folks I've known of spent their last couple years at airlines doing stuff like flying a PHX-HNL turn once a month, then dividing the remaining 29 days evenly between their boat, RV, and golf course. I'm not saying that high seniority pilots don't deserve this type of lifestyle, but you can't argue that it's particularly productive. Does anyone actually think that letting these folks do this for another 2 years will solve the shortage? All extending the retirement age does is gift the super senior pilots an opportunity to line their pockets with 350k+/yr for 2 more years while barely working at all.

IHMO (can't stress that enough) if Congress really wants to please their constituents and prevent flight cancellations for lack of pilots, they should keep the retirement age where it is to allow turnover to continue and allow the more junior folks to keep coming in- in terms of flights operated, we're doing more work and carrying more pax than senior pilots who rarely fly.

I will say that I think there is a unique situation here. COVID caused a bunch of careers to end earlier then planned, and actually accelerated a bunch of folks by a number of years as majors started gobbling up pilots from regionals as flying returned. If there is a good time to then put a "pause" on their advancement, this is it. Basically putting them mostly back where they would have been. In the end, for a lot of pilots, it'll end up begin an wash - advanced by two years basically due to COVID, then "lose" them again if this goes through.

If the pilots are physically and mentally fit to perform the job, let them do it. Everybody is different though - different genes and lifestyles contribute to how one performs with age. But age alone should not be the factor.

A couple of points...
1. If Congress wanted to really do something about the number of pilots, they'd amend the 1500 hour rule.
2. To all those saying "if pilots can fly to age 67, it'll put my career on hold for two years", what percentage of pilots will work those extra 2 years. My guess-not that many. Also, you'll also get those two years tacked onto the end of your career, if you want it.

TonyClifton wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

With a new session of Congress, a group of bipartisan senators introduced legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65.

The legislation entitled the "Let Experienced Fly Act", backed by industry groups including the Regional Airline Association (RAA) would provide some relief to the current pilot shortage particularly the shortage of airline captains.

Bill mentions 324 U.S. airports have lost an average of one-third of their air service and 53 airports have lost more than half of their air service, while 14 airports have lost all flights in recent years.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerosp ... 023-03-21/

Have unions taken a stand on this yet? I'd see them opposing and industry organizations like Airlines4America in support.

Kirby was against it last year: https://www.flyingmag.com/would-allowin ... a-mistake/

Where in that article did it say Kirby was against it?

CriticalPoint wrote:

If they do this they need to add a cognitive test to the medical requirements ….while experience matters so does being able to maintain situational awareness.

I did a lot of training in my career and saw the mental decline after 60.

Absolutely! I recommend the same cognitive test that Congress is required to take!

UA735WL wrote:

Dominion301 wrote:

UA735WL wrote:

I'll preface this by saying that the forthcoming post is written from *my own* point of view; I haven't seen my own situation brought up here so I'm adding it to the discussion in with the hope of helping everyone else formulate their opinion on the issue at hand.

SO...

As a junior pilot at a major US air carrier (who just got hired and hopes to stay the rest of my career with my current company) I'm opposed to raising the retirement age. I've been told by other people who were in the business when it was raised from 60 to 65 that a lot of folks' careers were essentially put on hold for 5 years; definitely not something you want if you're trying to build seniority and insulate yourself from furloughs and layoffs (Admittedly I'm not sure the job market will ever be quite as thin as it was in the 2000s, as the supply of military pilots is starting to dry up and COVID removed *a lot* of senior old-timers from the business).

In any case it's still not comforting to know that the folks at the top will essentially get carte blanche to stay where they are (furlough-proof) for 2 years while you spend the same 2 years stagnating in seniority worrying about whether or not you'll be able to keep your job, house, and continue feeding your young family if the economy takes a dive.

The funniest part is that legislators clearly don't understand that a 65 year old pilot is essentially useless from a "keep flights flying" perspective; all the super senior folks I've known of spent their last couple years at airlines doing stuff like flying a PHX-HNL turn once a month, then dividing the remaining 29 days evenly between their boat, RV, and golf course. I'm not saying that high seniority pilots don't deserve this type of lifestyle, but you can't argue that it's particularly productive. Does anyone actually think that letting these folks do this for another 2 years will solve the shortage? All extending the retirement age does is gift the super senior pilots an opportunity to line their pockets with 350k+/yr for 2 more years while barely working at all.

IHMO (can't stress that enough) if Congress really wants to please their constituents and prevent flight cancellations for lack of pilots, they should keep the retirement age where it is to allow turnover to continue and allow the more junior folks to keep coming in- in terms of flights operated, we're doing more work and carrying more pax than senior pilots who rarely fly.

To play devils advocate, how is the 65 year old captain any different than the 75 year old flight attendant blocking a junior FA from getting off reserve sooner and that’s been allowed for decades?

Some people just love their job and want to keep working. There’s lots of 67 year olds out there in much better shape than 50 year olds.

The difference is the playing field is no longer level for the pilots (to my knowledge no such rule governing retirement age exists for flight attendents); the senior person (in this case) is essentially benefiting from an outside manipulation of the rules that will not be repeated (or at least can't be reasonably expected to be repeated) when the junior person is in the same position.

I agree with you about physical condition; my father is 68 and still works with his hands remodeling houses and the like every day; not because he needs the money, but because he enjoys the work. Some of his friends close to his age are unable to even walk properly. Hell, some of them are dead.

The point I'm trying to make is that allowing pilots to stay until 67 will be less helpful with regard to easing the pilot shortage (the entire reason the proposal exists in the first place) than letting the system continue to run its course.

How many pilots who are 65 will *actually* want to stay, and disrupt their (doubtlessly already planned for decades) retirement? Of those, how many will actually be able to continue to hold a medical certificate? Of THOSE, how many will do anything but continue to fly the bare minimum?

There are thousands of younger pilots itching to make the leap into flying jets. Anyone who's been an airline pilot knows that it's a front loaded career, perhaps more so than any other. If Congress wants to help ease the pilot crunch, they'd be better served by letting the older & less productive pilots go and therefore increasing the proportion of junior pilots who fly more demanding schedules.

At one time decades ago the playing field wasn’t level for F/As either and more specifically for women only. Get pregnant and get fired is how it used to be. The difference for F/As is their cycle was eliminated decades ago…at least in most countries.

Here in Canada (and in Japan) pilots can already stay until 67 but you need to remain within domestic airspace after 65. Whenever you see a Canadian domestic flight that normally cuts through a slice of the USA, remaining solely within Canada, it’s highly likely an “old timer” is driving. If the USA align age with Canada, then the regular routings on both sides of the border can resume for the seniors.

Isn’t the ICAO global standard that the other pilot needs to be under 60 as an additional check and balance?

BB78710 wrote:

[ If 67 gets passed there would then be a push in a few years to raise it to 70. At some point you have to draw a line in the sand and say no, no more

Um, why?

If, say, 50 years from now, increasing human lifespans make 70 a more appropriate retirement age for pilots than 67, so what?

You're not inherently entitled to a job just because you're younger than someone else, any more than you are inherently entitled to a job by virtue of being white, or Christian, or male, or whatever. You're defending discrimination and ageism.

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

Indeed, you are discriminating, and in most other industries you would indeed be a risk for a lawsuit.

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

it's my very strong opinion....

That's you story, and you're stickin' to it.

If you can still get a first class medical at 65 and 66, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to fly 121 until you're 67. It's all about fitness to fly, and many 65-67 year olds are healthy as a horse. The FAA is behind the times in a lot of areas.

evank516 wrote:

If you can still get a first class medical at 65 and 66, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to fly 121 until you're 67. It's all about fitness to fly, and many 65-67 year olds are healthy as a horse. The FAA is behind the times in a lot of areas.

Does the first class medical exam sufficiently address cognitive decline that occurs with age? Not arguing. I'm asking. Or is it, I'm 65, I go visit the same doctor I've been seeing for 20 years... we discuss our golf scores, he takes my blood pressure, I share a bit of airline gossip, he asks me breathe while he listens in, ok we're done, see you next year...

evank516 wrote:

If you can still get a first class medical at 65 and 66, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to fly 121 until you're 67. It's all about fitness to fly, and many 65-67 year olds are healthy as a horse. The FAA is behind the times in a lot of areas.

Not only the FAA is behing the times in a lot of areas, most of national civil aeronautics authorities, well known case of the mexican ones, are far behind the evolution of technology and tendencies in civil aeronáutics.

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

evank516 wrote:

If you can still get a first class medical at 65 and 66, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to fly 121 until you're 67. It's all about fitness to fly, and many 65-67 year olds are healthy as a horse. The FAA is behind the times in a lot of areas.

Does the first class medical exam sufficiently address cognitive decline that occurs with age? Not arguing. I'm asking. Or is it, I'm 65, I go visit the same doctor I've been seeing for 20 years... we discuss our golf scores, he takes my blood pressure, I share a bit of airline gossip, he asks me breathe while he listens in, ok we're done, see you next year...

When I went for my first class medical exam I had to do cognitive tests.

Ok, you wish to go another 2 years? It should be a very thorough exam at that point; physical, mental, reaction times, etc. And not by the same doc you have been seeing for 20+ years but a doc who is specifically looking for cracks and corrosion.

Totally opposed here. I fly for a major US carrier and have strong opinions about this as well. My career progression stopped for five years at a regional so fat cats at the top of their major airlines could fly for another 5 years. One was whining to me about how during a slowdown he might have to sell his second house in a well known ski resort town. Know your audience when crying me that river.

The pilot shortage is here for a reason and kicking the can down the road for two more years won't solve it. Make it a better career..... That'll solve the issue. It's a good career but one where timing is literally everything (and nobody knows the right time) and success or failure is so unpredictable that I really am not sure I'd encourage anyone to get into it today.

Some pilots are really sharp at 60 or 65 and others are checked out at 50.

For those who aren't ready financially, that's not the problem of younger pilots.

My carrier's union did a survey on this issue about a year ago and around 70% of the respondents were opposed to an increase in the retirement age. I was strongly in that 70%.

VS11 wrote:
If the pilots are physically and mentally fit to perform the job, let them do it. Everybody is different though - different genes and lifestyles contribute to how one performs with age. But age alone should not be the factor

Absolutely this. No one should be arbitrarily forced to take retirement absent some compelling reason. Probably the better course would be to require pilots of a certain age to pass new and more stringent benchmarks or requirements, as established by the FAA . Not a pilot but I worked in the airline industry more than 40 years; I retired when I was 67. I didn't leave at 65 due to family reasons; I could even have kept going at 67 but didn't, I was ready then to retire. Really, some of you younger dudes here sound more angry and resentful than anything else of high seniority folks. Frankly, I think doctors and medical personnel are far more critical and important positions than pilots - and that group has no such mandatory retirement age. And doctors/nurses/medical personnel have a lot of people's lives and well being in their hands as do pilots.

Would there be a limit or minimum number of flight hours placed on pilots in 65 to 67 or 60 to 67 range?
At present airlines basically control how many hours the "seniors" work, will the congress put it's foot into that door if the main reason for the change is pilots actually flying?

slvrblt wrote:

VS11 wrote:
If the pilots are physically and mentally fit to perform the job, let them do it. Everybody is different though - different genes and lifestyles contribute to how one performs with age. But age alone should not be the factor

Absolutely this. No one should be arbitrarily forced to take retirement absent some compelling reason. ...

I have to agree with this as well. Legally mandated retirement ages are BS. I can imagine legally mandated performance criteria. Not everyone ages the same.

As for the whole "it's holding the younger pilots back", while I hear that argument, it shouldn't be addressed by law. That's IMO a contract issue and should be part of a contract negotiation with an airline, not something that a bunch of congress-critters stick their fingers into. If Congress needs to amend the ADEA to allow airlines to adopt a mandatory retirement age, fine. At least then it becomes a negotiation point between affected parties and not some outside imposed thing.

bigb wrote:

zuckie13 wrote:

UA735WL wrote:

I'll preface this by saying that the forthcoming post is written from *my own* point of view; I haven't seen my own situation brought up here so I'm adding it to the discussion in with the hope of helping everyone else formulate their opinion on the issue at hand.

SO...

As a junior pilot at a major US air carrier (who just got hired and hopes to stay the rest of my career with my current company) I'm opposed to raising the retirement age. I've been told by other people who were in the business when it was raised from 60 to 65 that a lot of folks' careers were essentially put on hold for 5 years; definitely not something you want if you're trying to build seniority and insulate yourself from furloughs and layoffs (Admittedly I'm not sure the job market will ever be quite as thin as it was in the 2000s, as the supply of military pilots is starting to dry up and COVID removed *a lot* of senior old-timers from the business).

In any case it's still not comforting to know that the folks at the top will essentially get carte blanche to stay where they are (furlough-proof) for 2 years while you spend the same 2 years stagnating in seniority worrying about whether or not you'll be able to keep your job, house, and continue feeding your young family if the economy takes a dive.

The funniest part is that legislators clearly don't understand that a 65 year old pilot is essentially useless from a "keep flights flying" perspective; all the super senior folks I've known of spent their last couple years at airlines doing stuff like flying a PHX-HNL turn once a month, then dividing the remaining 29 days evenly between their boat, RV, and golf course. I'm not saying that high seniority pilots don't deserve this type of lifestyle, but you can't argue that it's particularly productive. Does anyone actually think that letting these folks do this for another 2 years will solve the shortage? All extending the retirement age does is gift the super senior pilots an opportunity to line their pockets with 350k+/yr for 2 more years while barely working at all.

IHMO (can't stress that enough) if Congress really wants to please their constituents and prevent flight cancellations for lack of pilots, they should keep the retirement age where it is to allow turnover to continue and allow the more junior folks to keep coming in- in terms of flights operated, we're doing more work and carrying more pax than senior pilots who rarely fly.

I will say that I think there is a unique situation here. COVID caused a bunch of careers to end earlier then planned, and actually accelerated a bunch of folks by a number of years as majors started gobbling up pilots from regionals as flying returned. If there is a good time to then put a "pause" on their advancement, this is it. Basically putting them mostly back where they would have been. In the end, for a lot of pilots, it'll end up begin an wash - advanced by two years basically due to COVID, then "lose" them again if this goes through.

Misremembering stuff aren’t ya? Covid didn’t force a lot of senior pilots out of the careers…. The legancy carriers offered attractive early out packages to senior pilots to shed payroll costs thinking recovery was going to take awhile.

Airlines were caught by surprise with the quickness of the recovery found themselves short of crew resources to fly their schedules…..

Besides, this isn’t a time to put a pause on regional pilots advancement. You do that, you are going to make the shortage problem worse…..

There’s a reason why the pipeline dried up during the time of the 60 to 65 increase. It stopped movement causing a downward pressure on regional wages and qol therefore the investment of flight training for a flying career became negative on ROI….

Where did I say anyone was forced to leave? It's just a simple fact, a lot of pilots left the workforce sooner then they probably had originally planned. Why they left is immaterial to my point.

You are comparing two years vs five years is a big difference. With the current actual shortage, I do not think this is going to make the problem worse than it already is.

SurlyBonds wrote:

FiscAutTecGarte wrote:

yup, I'm descriminating. sue me. too much risk.

Indeed, you are discriminating, and in most other industries you would indeed be a risk for a lawsuit.

There are exemptions from the U.S. law prohibiting mandatory retirement age, and, indeed, those are commonly in occupations where high cognitive capacity is expected. Execs can be forced to retire at 65. And they're not piloting 500T fuel bombs. Add in greater risk of heart attack and cardiac arrest over 65. Have everyone in a left seat do extensive annual congitive tests and nuclear cardiac stress tests from age 62. The fact that the general population is living longer is absolutely no comfort or rationale for increasing the mandatory pilot retirement age.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/1625.12

As an airline pilot I say no way. This won’t help get service back to small towns that lost service. Let capitalism work, when regionals pay livable wages that take into account training/education expenses and responsibility of piloting a plane a passengers than the regionals will have pilots again. The pay is finally there now but it’s going to take time to build staffing back up after decades of regionals treating pilots like indentured servants. Side note the new contracts or LOA’s at most regionals only have pay increased for a 2 year period. I assure you if they can they will try to reduce pay again in 2 years.

Keep it 65. And go fly for SkyWest Charter 135 ops. Maybe more 135 ops will pop up. Take the ego hit of going from 787 CA to CRJ200 CA. The Guys (former WB Captains) that are starting at SkyWest Charter seem super happy and are enjoying it so far..