Originally Posted by
sailingfun
No, ICAO changed their age to 65. The FAA had agreements that meant they had to let those pilots fly in the US. There were multiple lawsuits over age 60 in court at that time. The FAA had beat those in years past as a safety issue which is the only reason you can discriminate for age. Hard to argue in court at that point that foreign pilots were safe to 65 and US pilots were not. Everyone except a bunch of airline pilots knew age 60 was done so legislation was quickly crafted to raise the age to 65 before a judge did it in court and possibly eliminated any age restrictions and or made it retroactive.
Other than a few pilots no one wants the age raised again including airline managements. The disability costs to the airlines would be enormous.
Interesting. Is there any chatter about ICAO raising again? Or are they not having the same challenges across the pond that we are?
I had concluded that while this would only be kicking the can down the road, it would slow things down for a bit which would help stabilize the regionals--and management would want that. I am also surprised the longest tenured pilots wouldn't want the option to keep going for a couple more years given the money they would make.