sailingfun

""ALPA really screwed the pooch on allowing the age to increase to 65. I'm sure they'll do it again.""

ALPA did not allow anything. ICAO issued a ruling that pilots could fly to 65 and the FAA agreed those pilots could fly in US airspace. Prior to this the FAA had won the many age discrimination law suits on the basis of safety. That argument was now dead since the FAA had just agreed it was safe. There were several lawsuits and legislative action in the works to raise the age to 65 or eliminate the retirement age completely. There was zero chance of preventing it from going to 65. ALPA did the smart thing and tried to shape how the age change would be introduced to do the least harm. They were successful in that. Fighting it would have only ended in thousands of pilots already over 60 coming back to work and furloughs for junior pilots.