While I agree it would be ridiculous to expect one person to sacrifice for another…that “era of absolutely unprecedented career opportunity” ONLY exists due to mandatory airline retirements.

And it's still going to happen, even if it takes a 2-3 year delay (I'm confident they won't go beyond 68 and even if they did there would be so few takers it would be irrelevant).

A young-ish pilot who gets hired atbig three/FDX today will QUICKLY advance to very high seniority as a NB FO or decent seniority as a NB CA and then have a very lucrative and comfortable existence for many decades to come. You don't need an indefinite run of massive retirements, just enough to get YOU to a good spot where you can happily hang out for the long term. As opposed to languishing at the regionals and/or furloughs for a couple decades.

While the retirements slow down a bit later in the decade, they'll actually still continue at a pretty good clip (by historical standards) well into the 2030's.

Nope. It won’t be a 2-3 year delay and it won’t fix the problem. 60 to 65 screwed me for over 10 years not five because other economic factors happened at the same time. And guess what here we are again. Didn’t fix the problem. Kicked the can down the road. Yet my progression was delayed 10years.

But that was not caused by age 65, as you say, other factors. Age 65 resulted in a career delay of somewhere between 3-4 ish years (not everybody stayed to 65).

There will always be "other factors" to one degree or another.

The 2008 recession was not caused by airline pilots over the age of 60, correlation is not necessarily causation :rolleyes:

The key word there is “today”.

“Today” stops for a massive number of regional, military and bizav pilots if people stop leaving off the top of the list, even if for “only” 2-3 years. And for those junior pilots who squeak onto the list, 2-3 years of relative stagnation.

Mandatory airline retirements are THE singular reason for the industry’s dynamic movement and career progression. They are the rising tide that are lifting all ships across all segments of industry.

There will be other factors again. Those economic factors will happen regardless. Let’s not try to fix what’s happening in the economy with an age extension because when the economy goes south the age extension is going to hurt twice as much.

It's not up to me. Sounds like at least some of the unions are advocating for status quo, so that's good.

If you're in your 20's or 30's, you won't hardly notice it. Would suck for older people who need to move a little further up the ladder but don't want to work after 65 themselves.

You can’t honestly believe that.

Except people do notice. This is a major problem with millennials. Your 20’s is when you want to start making money, saving for and buying a home, starting a family. A delay puts all that on hold which is bad for the country and eventually people don’t wait and take up other lines of work which hurts pilot supply long term. I know many that left the industry in their 20s bc of the effects of age 65 and 2008 together. They never came back bc life happened and starting over wasn’t an option.

Older gens think sure a younger person can recover or wait out a pause but life doesn’t go on pause while your career does. Decisions get made and pilots leave from the bottom and cut their losses