After reading the article it's pretty easy to see who the Lobbyist's are. The regionals and all the airlines having hiring issues. I suppose it will cause a bunch of training churn and expense at the legacies if the widebody pilots can't fly internationally.

I as long as we have the young whipper snappers like Grassly, Feinstein, and the rest of the adult diaper wearing bunch it will pass. Hopefully the law is written to require adult diaper changing tables on all aircraft.

Bring all the regional pilots onto the the mainline seniority lists and working under the mainline contracts. Do that AND move anyone age 65+ to the bottom of the seniority list while keeping their longevity for pay and other benefits. Heck they can even keep their last category pay for all I care. Then and only then would I even think of entertaining an age increase. Let’s see how many stick around flying right seat in an RJ 5-6 legs a day for $350/hr.

Age 65 combined with 2008 ruined me financially and it took a lot longer than five years to recover from. Probably wouldn’t have been furloughed or lost my home if the age had stayed at 60.

SWA: increased retirement age and the 737 not getting updated. Thanks.

Why blame the rise of retirement to 65 for your financial woes? Many pilots lost their pensions. Many were relying on those accounts for their golden years. Many chose, not to displace you from the left seat, but as a necessity for their future.


Did you get caught up in the home balloon mortgage scam in the early 2000’s. Buy that SUV with zero percent APR for 5 years? How many years were you furloughed? You familiar with those caught up in the 70’s major furlough. Back in the day… many were furloughed longer than the were on the property. Rather obtuse to blame the the approaching 65ers for your ill fortune. They didn’t enact the law… Congress did. Blame your politician for voting for the law. Go back to the Genesis of the age 65 retirement age… ICAO. When and IF the retirement age is increased beyond 65, make your comments when the NPRM is issued. You choosing to work beyond 60 or 65 if raised will deprive those behind you the same of what you bring to this forum. Sort of be a double standard. Don’t you agree?

Exactly. 67 is the ideal age to take SS benefits. Make it 65 for pilots, or raise the age to 67.

By that logic, wouldn't 70 be the better than ideal age? (SS maxes out at 70)

While this may be true, I fully intend on taking them at 62 with the penalty. My hope is that the difference won't matter much financially at that point and who knows if I would live long enough to get the full benefits of waiting on 67. I am financially planning to not even need SS anyway, so whatever I get is a bonus.

Statistically, no. The SS scales from 62 - 70 should be a financial wash to you (and .gov) based on life expectancy.

But of course that's *average* life expectancy, and they don't even have different scales based on gender.

So when you take SS should probably be informed by your health and family genetics. If you're healthy, work to stay that way, and your family tends to live well into their 90's (my wife's does) then maybe defer to age 70 for the best vegas odds. No guarantees of course, that's just playing the numbers that you know. Also need to consider your spouse's likely lifespan if the spouse depends on your benefits.

That all assumes that you don't NEED (or want) the SS sooner, and that your sole consideration is maximizing the $ benefit over time (for the benefit of your heirs?).

I plan to evaluate at age 62 and then each year thereafter. If I'm healthy enough to fly I can't imagine I'd take it before airline retirement (whenever that is).

Looks like a 40 year old Atlas Captain... :D

You should have addressed this to Aletta, not me. He's the one that stated 67 is the ideal age to take SS. Mine was a rebuttal to his comment, as there are too many variables to declare a specific ideal retirement age for everyone.

You're simply muddying the waters by tossing in life expectancy, which was not his reason for stating 67. He simply stated 67 because it's full retirement age. I rebutted with 70 since that's maximum payout age when first taking retirement benefits. But you knew all of that.
And you should also know that no matter when you take SS benefits, the equal payout for each choice intersects somewhere in the low 80s.
Why did you choose to respond to my post but not Aletta's post?