Originally Posted by mooneymite

The word I got is that the company's interest in the issue is rooted in the fact that there are presently too high a percentage of captains...not specifically an age issue. It's a money issue.

Because there is no contractual way of downgrading captains to FO, the company sees the age 65 issue as a way of getting rid of 144 (?) captains who make too much and hiring new FOs at less than half the pay. The FOs over age 65 are just collateral damage.