Originally Posted by CRJCapitan

I understand your point and perspective. I agree it’s a lame excuse to claim the mandatory retirement age shouldn’t be raised just to accommodate young pilots.

However, there are other fields where there is precedent for mandatory retirement ages, and those mandates are not anywhere near approaching 70 years old. Air traffic controllers, for example, have to retire at 56(!). I am generally for less rules and regulations, but we all know that there is validity to this rule as we all eventually start to slow down cognitively. The age 65 rule is an effective in ensuring that pilots are still at essentially the top of their games for the entirety of their careers.

First class medical exams in their current state are unequivocally not suited for evaluating a person’s cognitive ability. These medical exams were designed to evaluate a pilot’s physical health because we have always had a reasonable age cutoff to ensure the cognitive aspect of a person’s condition is not impaired. By raising the age, we would be taking a risk without having any real measures for mitigation. We as pilots would never identify a potential threat and not take steps to mitigate it, so why would we now?