Thread: SWA&UA Pilots Sue-want 65 Retro & want age 70
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Old 06-15-2009 | 05:42 AM
  #46  
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Klako
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From: Military Flight Instructor
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Originally Posted by globalexpress
Klako-

Just curious.....were you saying this "fightin' words" 10 years ago? 20 years ago? Or did you just recently "find religion" now that you're 60ish? I suspect that an Age 60 retirement was just fine for many of you and your peers pursuing this litigation UNTIL it was your time to retire.

Good luck with your litigation. If you guys win by some sort of miracle, I suspect you won't be welcomed with open arms by your peers in the cockpit.....

I have always opposed the damn age 60 rule. When I was still in high school I helped stuff envelopes for my next door neighbor, a Western Airline Captain who was fighting the age 60 rule at the time. He said that the rule could not stand, that it was blatantly unconstitutional...

The Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) at first fought hard to repeal the age 60 rule. In 1968 this was ALPA’s official stance on the Age 60 Rule:

“ALPA CONTINUES OPPOSITION TO AGE 60 RETIREMENT RULE . The Air Line Pilots Association strongly advocates that the Federal Air Regulation in its arbitrary age 60 retirement provision is unreasonably discriminating against all of the air line pilots. Shortening a pilots career with no realistic justification is cheating the public as well as the industry. ALPA has expended and continues to expend its utmost efforts in attempting to overcome this highly dissatisfying and unfair federal regulation.”
Sadly, ALPA turned traitor to it’s senior members after supporting a change in the rule for over twenty years. ALPA had institutionalized age discrimination as an accelerated job advancement scheme for its junior pilots.

ALPA President Henry Duffy’s made this statement in the 1990 Baker v FAA “It has never been my belief that professional expertise diminishes at age 60, on the contrary, our senior members possess a wealth of knowledge, aviation history, and insight that have been developed through their years of experience, which are irreplaceable”. He also stated during this testimony “Pilots over 55 comprise 5-6% of the total membership. The other 95% selfishly view the forced retirement of older pilots as their guaranteed path and a God given right to their promotions!”

Safety is the lie that ALPA and APA had been spouting to mask blatant ageism directed against its most senior pilots.

In July 1979 Captain J. J. O’Donnell, then president of ALPA, testifies before the House Public Works and Transportation Committee: Congressman Anderson: “I gather from your testimony before the Select Committee on Aging that some of your members do not want to see the Age 60 Rule ended. Do those who oppose ending the age 60 rule do so on the grounds of safety or economics?” Captain O’Donnell; “ I would be misleading [to say that] they do it on the basis of safety. ... [i]t is economics to those who object to the change in the regulation.”
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