Originally Posted by FlintMike

I think many of you are missing the point. Congress…and the White House love to solve problems. They rarely do but nonetheless they are LEGENDS IN THEIR OWN MINDS… . Some problems do exist. Some problems don’t exist. That doesn’t matter. What DOES matter…is the press conference after whatever action passes. Everyone loves to take credit for saving the country and the world.

Removing the four year degree requirement proves the pilot shortage.

In the 1990s Bill Clinton reduced the number of Active Duty Army Divisions from 18 to 10 with the other services drawing down as well. This was the Peace Dividend from the fall of the Soviet Union. The predictive analysis then said we would have a pilot shortage now. This has been decades in the making for a dozen reasons. Age 67 or 68 most likely will happen within the next 5 years. I can point to hundreds of RJs in the Arizona desert that were parked during COVID and are still parked to prove my point. I heard them landing every 5 minutes outside of Tucson in 2020 on ABQ Center. Congress in the end will save the airline industry. It is all about public perception… .

The FAA and ICAO were talking age 67 in 2019. It was an idea… . It got lost during COVID… . It takes years for every country to sign off on an ICAO initiative… .

Years ago there was a baseball players strike. A player was interviewed and stated that he was very bitter losing $35,000 a game during the strike. Many people made $35,000 a year during this point in history. That interview tanked the public support for the baseball players… . Age 67 is about the public support and a Congressional WIN…not pilot unions.

If we were to look at the safest course of action we could look to the military. Age 60. Waivers to age 62. So maybe age 65 was a mistake???

My analysis. If you don’t like change you will like irrelevance even less.