Originally Posted by
NotMrNiceGuy
I remember looking up most junior captain at American in 2016. It was a ‘96 hire on the super 80 in LGA. Pretty sure someone hired at age 31 and not upgrading on an MD-80 while commuting to LaGuardia at 50 would notice.
Saying that won’t happen again sounds like Doug Parker saying the airlines won’t lose money again.
There are waves in aviation. Nothing is assured and today’s predictions are meaningless. Not to mention that some of these waves are already on the back end.
But the economic waves are independent of any hypothetical change in retirement age. Changing the age does not cause recessions, wars, etc. Those will happen or not, regardless.
Could you find a rare example who could have just barely upgraded, and somehow never been downgraded over 20 years of turmoil? Sure. But changing or not changing the age will not have that sort of effect on most people. Silver lining, the guy who got stuck as an FO got to enjoy good seniority and stayed married, compared to the guy who upgraded to junior reserve and stayed there for a couple decades.
I'm not even advocating for the change and if it looks imminent I might even grab an upgrade on the next bid for those reasons. But it's only going to have 2 year ish impact on most people.