Age 65 is not a big deal here at Delta...yet. We already had a huge wave of retirements during and prior to our bankruptcy. There were no meaningful retirement numbers planned for the next 5 years anyway.
Any positive movement here at Delta for the next decade will have to come from growth. Fortunately that is exactly what is happening right now and will hopefully continue to happen at least through 2010. The new hires right now should be able to position themselves very well and be in a nice seat whenever the inevitable stagnation begins.
A merger, of course, would complicate matters but in most cases would combine us with a carrier that has more planned retirements than we do...which can be viewed as a positive.
There is, however, no predicting how things will ultimately play out anyway, or if you'll even be healthy enough to fly to 65. For that matter, there's no point in worrying about the myriad of things in this business that are completely out of our control either...at least thats been my philosophy of late!
Meanwhile I'm just enjoying the beer in Frankfurt and having a ton of time off!
Sure beats being furloughed.