Is it possible for a president to issue an executive order to the FAA increasing the retirement age to 67/68 bypassing U.S Congress? Similar fashion to the executive order President Regan did with ATC in 1980’s

Not a political question.

 

Man, so much talk about weak FO's in the system these days at the Regional level. When I was a check airman at the regional level in the mid 2000's, almost all of our new hires were 250-500 hour pilots with brand new Multi Commercial tickets in hand with the absolute minimum multi time/Instrument time possible. They were universally in over their heads and absolutely worthless as FO's during initial IOE (understandably), but eventually got the hang of it over time - most new hires needing somewhere in the vicinity of 50 to 70 hours to complete IOE, with some needing over 100 hours. With that said, almost all of them eventually became very good to excellent pilots/crew members, and moved on to became good to excellent captains. But boy, oh boy, our line captains were quasi-IOE pilots with most of those FO's during their first year on the job.

By the time these FO's (industry wide) - who often have such a steep learning curve early on - become captains, almost all have become quite good at what they do, and are MORE than capable of being excellent new hire FO's at any major airline, and will likely eventually go on to become excellent captains at that level too.

I hate to judge a new or inexperienced pilot's future potential early on when he or she is still relatively wet behind the ears.

The truly poor ones have many many opportunities to wash out in their career at the regional level. They will likely never see a major airline flight deck no matter which airline it is.

 

Delta hasn’t got a single envoy guy in the last 3-6 months. The flow carrot is working...an occasional PSA guy gets hired. I haven’t seen PDT on the list ALPA sent of new hires every now and then.

Not every envoy pilot has apps for every airline, I really doubt they have apps out at all.

The original flow through from AE and subsequently the protected pilots (which will be done soon) were NMB awards from grievances and AA wrongdoings in the early 2000s and 2008-2010.

It’s nobody fault that Parker used it to whipsaw the regionals. The flow awards should’ve be over about 4-6 months ago if AA would only took Envoy flows and not diluted them with PSA and PDT hires.

Now AA has agreement with all the regionals and will be hard to break them. That’s another reason why Delta and United only have interview agreements with their regionals. They want to control who they hire and when.

 

United regionals are shrinking (Expressjet) because they can't get/retain pilots. They are desperate to find something that looks like a flow to keep people at the regionals, otherwise they will collapse.

 

Age 67 or 68 wouldn't solve the problem but it would buy enough time for the airlines to start up fully funded ab initio programs... they'll get all the pilots the need if they do that, especially if they cover housing/COL (so nothing out-of-pocket). They'll wait until they're desperate and then go to congress hat in hand.

2-3 years would be enough time to get a pipeline of noobs to 1500 hours, and they could just pay for them to burn holes in the sky if it came to that.

 

New hires at envoy are told they are interviewing for AA. Existing flow programs(arbitration awarded) are coming to an end. IIRC in the future when their opportunity comes up they will transition to AA provided they have no detrimental issues outstanding. No interview necessary.

 

Pilot age is federal law, so no. If Reagan did something with ATC age it was probably in the regs but not the law.

But pretty sure congress would go along if airlines and unions concurred it was necessary and reasonably safe.

 

I’m not all that sure it would. Age 65 was in part a gift to major airline pilots who were screwed out of their retirement programs by bankruptcy AND the age 65 mandatory retirement age. By retiring at 60, they came under the early retirement provisions of the Pension Benefit Guarantee folks, which gave them a lesser retirement than others with similar incomes whose pension programs had been terminated.

https://www.aviationpros.com/home/ne...exdelta-pilots

Once these individuals aged out of the system, the average airline retirement age started coming DOWN because fewer if those who had adequate time to build up their 401k felt the need to work into their mid 60s even though the money was good since being retired with money is only a plus if you live long enough to enjoy it.

The same would apply to an age 67 limit. Not all pilots will want to wait that long and even among the fraction that does not all of those pilits pilots will be medically capable. Nor does it take someone to be incapacitated to the point that they cannot actually fly. Someone requiring a cardiac stent or graft, for example, will require 3-6 months before his/her waiver will even be considered by the FAA. Even a totally waiverable problem - like type 2 diabetes or non-metastatic prostate cancer - may eat up so much time in processing that it just isn’t worth it and medical retirement is just simpler.

The upcoming pilot shortage was a totally predictable event, but it was a long lead time problem. What was needed was to start wirking on it a decade ago when it was already obvious there would be massive numbers retiring in a short time frame. That wasn’t done and it’s too late now - at least too late to keep experience levels up to historical norms.

 

I just based my opinion on past actual numbers and knowledge of the military pipeline and available pilots. For every 2 people I know that got hired by a major airline after separating/retiring, I know one that is still waiting on a call or with a regional. I guess that makes me delusional that this supply will dry up.

Your statement of most pilots find careers elsewhere may have been true when the airlines paid crap and were not hiring. That is not the case these days.

I don't know where a rickair post is, but the military will continue to make pilots and they will continue to separate at a high rate. The accumulator is not running out. Over 2000 military pilots available each year is going to continue until the end of time.

I separated at 13 years, and many more have done so and will continue to do so bearing a $100k per year increase in military pay or a $100k decrease per major airline pay per year.

I believe it is delusional to think that military pilots will not continue to seek per pay and quality of life. The supply IS there.

 

Underrated comment, especially since some years are 366.