Originally Posted by
TPROP4ever
The reason I ask the above question is I hang out with a lot of guys in a local EAA chapter and there are some between 60-65 guys that feel the gov was too reactionary to a booming industry, and then when the tide so sharply turned it seemed all of a sudden, not such a good idea. I'm curious how people feel. Being able to continue on 5 more years seems a good thing, I like the idea for when I reach that age, but did we help or hurt ourselves in the long run, I consider myself too new to the industry to really have a good feel on the long term effects of this ruling, both on forcing guys that want to retire to stay in the planes, and thus inadvertantly keeping furloughed guys out of them. I personally have no doubt I'd still be furloughed even without this so it doesnt directly affect me, but I wonder how the guys somewhere in the middle feel? I would love some honest input from other people here.
There were some legit reasons for raising the retirement age:
- The original age 60 law was not based on any scientific data, but rather it was a corrupt backroom political deal between the CR Smith (CEO of AA) and some of his political cronies. He didn't want to pay his senior captains the top of the wage scale, so he cooked up a scheme to have congress get rid of them.
- If you assume that age 60 made some kind of scientific sense 50 years ago, you can logically conclude that the age should be raised today. Back then an airline pilot didn't work out, ate eggs for breakfast, steak for dinner, washed it down with a fifth of gin and smoked a pack (or two) a day. ince society in general and pilot in particular are healthier these days we can expect them to have a lower risk of incapacitation at a given age.
- If the rest of the world is doing it, it's not really fair that our guys should be restricted to age 60.
With that said, the senior (old) leadership at alpa sold out that large majority who voted no on age 65. Whatever your personal feelings on the issue, alpa's job is to represent their members as a whole, not just the senior widebody captains.
The horse is out of the barn, and it's not going back in. The airlines do not stand to benefit by repealing age 65, and there are far too many other hurdles as well.