Originally Posted by
pangolin
You have absolutely no science to back this up. No one does. This isn’t being pushed by science. There is some logical conjecture that as a stop gap it will let the supply chain ripple caused by covid to catch up. First it was no shortage. Then it was an industry wide fo shortage. Seemingly cured with money (may have been coincidental - the money came about the time the post lockdown trainees hit their 1500 hours). Now it’s a ca problem that will also be cured with time. The slowdown in major hiring with age 67 might be enough to help slightly. But nobody knows this. At all. There’s been no research.
We do know a lot about cognitive decline with age, though it’s true 60 (initially) was an arbitrary number. If there is a “magic number” where average aptitude no longer meets the standards of airline flying, I’ve not seen any in-depth analyses comparing 60, 65, & 67. (As mental acuity with age seems to be linked to physical fitness, though, our declining health & the obesity epidemic would suggest that said number may be moving down rather than up, but I digress.)
What I also have not seen are any comparisons of the degree to which this is likely to improve pilot staffing issues against how much it’s likely to cost airlines in extra LTD payouts. This may well be a “solution” that costs a lot while doing very little to address the actual problem. Neither have I heard anyone detail what needs to happen over the next two years to prepare us for the moment when today’s 65YOs are turning 67, & why none of that happened during the 60-65 era- which was also supposed to “solve” the pilot shortage. At its face, this just seems to be a very half-baked idea.
What I can say is that any pilot advocating for stricter medicals could spend 5 minutes googling the law of unintended consequences & considering to what degree they actually want Lindsey Graham tinkering with how our fitness for flight is determined. One run-in on the wrong side of that legislation & you may
need age 67 just to work back toward lost wages.