Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Many would retire anyway because they don't want to work any longer, and had 65 set as the arbitrary finish line.
Some will retire early, even before 65 because they've met financial goals.
Some will work as long as they can because they need the money, either through poor planning or bad luck.
A few just like their jobs and will keep doing it if they can.
But what everybody forgets is ICAO... can't do international over age 65, and I'm pretty darn sure that that includes MX and CA. So widebody CA's would have to take a paycut, retrain, and fly NB's. I believe they would also have to be accommodated to stay domestic (really domestic). Many would not be interested in doing that. Also it's entirely possible that airlines would not be required to "accommodate" them by giving them domestic schedules outside of seniority. Airlines might be able to require that all pilots be legally eligible to fly to all destinations for a fleet they bid into.
Between high longevity, WB=>NB flowdown training events, and higher health and disability benefit costs, airlines will not see this as a windfall. They might go for it anyway if they think they need a bandaid to mitigate some of the pilot shortage.
As far as life expectancy, pilots on average live longer than the population average simply due to being higher on the socio-economic ladder. Yeah we take a hit due to OTJ environmental factors but not that big of a hit. Except maybe cargo people.
I wouldn't count on 'many' retiring at 65; if they can burn their sick time slowly and fly a lighter schedule, a lot will do that. Finances won't be the primary factor unless the markets count melting down from here.
As far as ICAO, the current Chief of the Aviation Medical Section, Dr Ansa Jordaan, has not put out any studies about flying past 65 since she took over from Dr Anthony Evans when he retired October 2015. Dr Evans was a huge proponent of raising retirement age and put out multiple papers on the subject - it appeared that he was targeting age 70. I don't think that Dr Jordaan/ICAO would change the age 65 rule until after the US made a change.
That would restrict US pilots to only flying in the US. However, the only reason right now that Canada has 65 as the upper limit is due to the US retirement age so that would probably change quickly, based on this article:
https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-ca...re%20different.
Would Mexico also increase pilot retirement age to match the US? Probably.
So that would put US pilots over the age of 65 to be restricted to the US, Canada, and Mexico. That would make scheduling over age 65 pilots fairly easy so I don't see a huge roadblock from airlines.
Would widebody Captains be willing to downgrade to the 756 fleet or narrowbody fleet? That's hard to guess.
I'm in my early 60s and could financially retire tomorrow. I have Tricare for my medical so I don't need to worry about reaching age 65. But I don't retire now because my wife is 8 years younger than me and wants to work into her 60s. When I approach 64, I'll get a comprehensive medical exam to see if there are any medical issues that should be taken care of and put me on LTD.