What was the initial reason for the age 60 anyway? One explanation I heard was airline execs didn’t want someone sitting at the top of the pay band until they were 80ish. Back then You couldn’t swing a dead cat and not hit an airline pilot so they forced the person at the top out and brought in someone at the bottom that was making a tenth of what the older person was. Makes perfect sense from a purely economic view. But what about all that experience walking out the door?

I believe it was Scott Kirby that said most of his older pilots that were close to retirement were out on sick leave. My question to Kirby would be what is your policy for being paid out for sick leave when someone retires? Is it possible they are taking the sick leave to keep from losing it? That would be my guess.

if they raise the age to 67 or remove it completely I would be ok with a cognitive test at 65 and older. But now that I think of it, I know some 30 year olds that would be questionable if they could pass it.

Haven’t we recently (in the last 2 years) had several pilots in their 50s die inflight? Prior to 2021 how often did a pilot die at the controls?

Full disclosure: I recently was forced out because of age 65. I didn’t want to go as I loved my job. I’m in excellent health and have no issues and I take no prescription drugs. I would have stayed if I could have. I was ready to go financially but not mentally.