A ton of guys at United said they'd be out at 62. I watched monthly retirement numbers while on furlough. In the end, it was about 5% that retired before 65. I didn't bother trying to compute if anyone retired at 60 or 62.

May 13 Airline Weekly; “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is said to be preparing to introduce legislation that would raise the retirement age for commercial airline pilots in the U.S. by at least two years, to 67.

Two people familiar with the proposed legislation confirmed that Graham is in the process of building support among his colleagues in Congress before introducing the bill.”

That little weasel.

Wonder who the Lobbyist's are that are pushing this?

Woosh?…………….

Steering this ship off course for a second….What we really need is age 65 for the stews…


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For real. Some of them have damn near been working 65 years

I am 100 percent for it. I should be able to work as long as like as long as I pass a check ride and my medical. Timing is everything in this industry. The age got changed to 65 when I was a FO, which delayed my upgrade by years, I just accepted and kept on working. The mystical Covid and the Mystical election have all had consequences, we are now seeing the results of both and they are not good.

LMAO at pretending a medical is a real screening

Sounds like an opportunity to stretch my LTD an extra 2 years. Go for it!

I’m all for extending the mandatory retirement to Infiniti as long as it comes with some stringent medical screening requirements past age 60.

I agree; that will make it easier for me to LTD out. Perhaps add cognitive testing ... I'm sure there are more than a few here that think I have a defective brain. :) I think I can fail that test fairly easily.

Here's an article confirming that it's a rumor that Sen Graham's pushing this:
https://airlineweekly.com/2022/05/se...etirement-age/
If you're thinking about writing a letter to his office, he's currently 66 so I don't think it'll be very effective.

Given that this is an election year and there's still a lot of work to be done on this, I wouldn't expect to see a change before 2023; probably after the new batch of congresscritters get sworn in.
Maybe Biden will veto it? I mean, a 79 year old will surely have a problem with raising the retirement age to 67. :eek:
Also, a lot of our congresscritters are older than 67. So if (more likely when) this gets out of committee, it's likely to pass.

They should have a mandatory retirement age also :rolleyes:

And wasn’t Lindsey Graham the one who openly suggested we assassinate a world leader? He def needs to be put out to pasture.

Thanks for injecting your politics into yet another thread that should have nothing to do with it. We get it. Your upgrade was delayed. My recall from furlough was delayed. How we vote isn’t relevant.

[QUOTE=ZapBrannigan;3422035]Thanks for injecting your politics into yet another thread that should have nothing to do with it. We get it. Your upgrade was delayed. My recall from furlough was delayed. How we vote isn’t relevant.[/QUOTE

Right? Well fuel prices are about to kill any growth at the airlines. So that's not going to kill your upgrade? Inflation going to decrease the revenue, which is going to kill the bottom line at many airlines even at SWA, so you don't think that/'s going to kill your upgrade?? I could go on and on. If i want to work until am 68 I should be allowed to if I pass my check rides and my medical and I planning on doing just that.

Alpa was certainly singing different tune back when the age 60 got changed. LOL!!

https://www.defensedaily.com/u-s-air...uncategorized/

Already starting to see the effects of high fuel prices.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...fuel-cost-jump

There's been whispers about Feinstein for a while now. Here's a recent article on this subject: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dia...tebook-pergram

Biden's is markedly slower in the cognitive department but still functioning.
Pelosi's lost a couple of steps but she's still doing OK.

I haven't seen any other elder politicians speaking publicly. Those that have issues tend to be shielded from the public by their aides. I haven't seen any clips of Feinstein speaking so I can't personally comment on how she's doing cognitively.

But you're asking the rule makers to put themselves out to pasture. It's more likely for them to die in office. Chuck Grassley, at 88, is running for reelection this midterm - and he's almost guaranteed to be reelected. Feinstein's up for reelection in 2024.

To be fair, that’s not really age specific…it may just be a poor time for a combination of last nights street tacos and this mornings Dunkin to kick in…😆

And you’ll stagnate for 2+ more years if this passes. Which it won’t. The only people who wouldn’t stagnate would be the younger crowd hired after the age 65 bill was introduced.

SWAPA was also singing a different tune with age 65. I think its funny SWAPA and ALPA all making public statements about not wanting the age to be bumped up to age 67 or 68, yet most likely over 98% Captains who work at both unions are going home praying it does change. ALPA voted in age 65 by over 80% vote.


http://www.ppf.org/newslet.htm

Important text:
November 2006Volume 16, Issue 11
Anxious Times Presidents Message ---
This has been an interesting, if not exciting, month. Senator Inhofe, sponsor of S.65 to change the Age 60 Rule, reportedly groundlooped his light plane. PPF has entered into an agreement with the SouthWest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) to provide one third of the expense in hiring a Public Relations firm for 90 days. A picketing action during the ALPA annual in Las Vegas, is being planned at the last minute. An Aviation Rulemaking Committee was formed by the FAA, on extremely short notice and Senator Inhofe responded with a “we’re keeping an eye on you” letter to the Administrator.
To begin with, Senator Inhofe did not get injured in his mishap. Neither did his passenger. From the press reports, it would appear that he flew from Tulsa to Norman, OK, where he felt something amiss with the rudder. Visual inspection after landing revealed nothing. He took off for the return flight to Tulsa where he again noticed that something didn’t feel right. He informed his passenger that the landing may be more eventful than normal, and briefed him on exit procedures. Approaching the airport, he requested the longest runway rather than the usual shorter runway. Touchdown was normal, however when the
tailwheel was lowered, the aircraft apparently groundlooped, damaging the plane. The FAA said there was not enough damage to be an accident/incident and the NTSB inspector told the Senator to “get it fixed”. End of story.
Toward the end of last week PPF was informed that a PR firm was being hired by SWAPA to participate in the conflict against the Age 60 Rule, for a 90 day period at a fixed sum, plus certain expenses. A meeting was arranged with “Ike” Eichelkraut, President of SWAPA. We offered to enter a partnership where PPF would cover a third of the cost, with SWAPA and APAAD supplying two thirds. We quickly agreed and the PR firm, O'Neill and Associates, started that day.
If ever we needed publicity, the next 90 days surely are the most critical.




I found it interesting that SWAPA chipped in for 1/3 of an ad campaign along with PPF and APAAD.
Somehow, I don't think that SWAPA's MEC informed the membership before committing the funds. I'm not throwing rocks at the entire SWAPA membership, just surprised that their MEC would do this without discussing it with the full membership.

Fine with me. I stagnated for years as a FO. Upgrade pushed back, had to continue to commute for another 3.5 years due to age 65 change.

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?

Relax, I was just replying to the last post in the discussion, it's a conversation not a debate as far as I'm concerned. If you want to win a debate we'll mark you down as the winner now.

Recently ran the ss numbers for a 66 year old uncle and both in-laws (in early 70’s) for comparison. All we’re near but not at the max benefit. In all three cases it made no sense to delay the benefit. For the uncle it became clear that putting it off a year was a bad decision. it’s going to take over a decade to break even and that’s assuming no interest on moneys he could have been banking that first year at 65. Anyhow, no point for someone my age (49) looking for at least another decade.

Seems possible this could require the airlines to keep larger staff to back up 67 year olds with massive sick and vacation time. So does this solve the staffing problem at all or just make it worse? If I’m working at 67 I’ll be flying one trip a month max.

If this gets passed but the ICAO international 65 restriction remains, I see a new push by the senior pilots. Ego based pay (ie Big Jet =‘s bigger pay) will be targeted for massive change. Instead the focus will be on what UPS and KLM have. Seniority and Seat based pay scales. That way they can max their pay on a domestic only aircraft.

Aren’t rules like this usually changed by regulators, after extensive examination of data: fatigue, motor skills and aging, etc? How often do safety regulations, particularity in aviation, get changed by a legislator’s bill? The only thing I could see is a bill that would mandate the FAA to examine raising the age beyond 65. At that point the work would begin (probably several years) and then we’d get a recommendation. Anything can happen but I don’t see this going past Grahams’ desk.

That sounds like something boomers might do but there won't be enough 65+ to make it happen.

The regulator can change it after, like you said, some due process including public commentary. Unless an existing federal LAW proscribes the change in question.

Congress can always pass a law which would always supersede bureaucratic regulations and process (assuming POTUS signs it). No particular due process required, other than normal legislative process. Although some analysis would probably get done by somebody, staffers or lobbyists, and used as supporting material during the committee/ congressional debates. Good chance legislators would ask for the regulator (FAA) to weigh in with their opinion and data. But ultimately congress and laws supersede bureaucrats and regulations, however it plays out. IIRC that's how got the 1500 hour/ATP rule.

Current FARs have, in some cases, matching federal law. IIRC examples are PEDs, alcohol, falsification of FAA forms and there are others. Typical reason is to put criminal teeth behind certain regs.

There are many other FARs which have no matching federal law, and are only subject to regulatory/admin law/civil enforcement. Example would be landing currency, there's no federal criminal penalty if you're out of currency so not going to jail for that.

I foresee a mad rush to upgrade before this becomes a thing.

Yeah it's got me thinking.

LTD from 61-67 sounds nice.