IMO!
Viewed through the lens of removing the upper age limit, the IATA working paper, along with the one from Canada, Brazil, the U.K., New Zealand and Australia, lays out a path that is pragmatic.
The UN's goal is simple: remove the cap. Why? It's discriminatory and it not based in equity. Their words NOT mine!
The challenge is structural. ICAO has 193 member states, many don’t even have a national airline, and many more don’t have the regulatory or medical infrastructure to support a risk based (no upper limit) oversight framework.
ICAO is, in reality, a mix of capable and incapable states.
The working papers recognize this. Step one is raise the limit to a restrictive 67. Step two: incapable states need an agreed to path to build out oversight so that, over time, the upper limit can be removed entirely. The larger aviation nations, the sponsors, are already less restrictive than ICAO today, with robust oversight in place.
They are the capable states. Most of the world is not.
This WP moves ICAO forward without leaving the incapable states without a path.
To universally remove the upper limit, capable states need confidence that the other states they recognize are operating with comparable oversight. Without that, universal recognition just isn’t possible. The Canada sponsored paper goes right at this, laying out a framework for capable states to move first, while giving others time and space to catch up.
The trajectory is clear: raise to 67, then allow bilaterial agreements between capable states to remove the ceiling, and eventually, at least in theory, set up a path for universal removal of the restrictive limit once oversight systems are strong everywhere.
But in practice, that last stage probably never happens.