So...Who cares?

 

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This is nothing but more selfishness from the most selfish generation ever. The boomers at the end of their careers planned poorly, wasted their money when they were young, relied on a pension that was underfunded for a decade instead of starting their own investments, and even after they got retirement age raised once to make up for it, they still couldn't make it work so now they want another bite of the apple. No. You made bad life choices, and that's not my problem. Buh bye. Shoo. Good riddance. I can't wait for the working environment in this industry to improve when they leave and take their politics, grouchiness, selfishness, and conspiracy theories with them.

 

Age 67, or age XYZ, might be a bigger deal for airlines then they thought. If it crept its way into our industry, the unions would most certainly capatialize on it.

No more 12 year max CA pay. Some pay Max 15. I would be pushing for a max 40 year CA pay - pay scale.

if they want old pilots that much, that bad, they need to be ready to pay big bucks for that kind of experience.

Once the unions all change strategy the airlines will realize how expensive it is.

If unions were smart, they would put the pay scales in now. Why? It doesn't cost anything.

Heck, even United Airlines has a age 70 provision in their current LTD tables. They planned for age 70 with the CAL/UAL merger by putting aside money. So, on the one hand ALPA says no, but their crown jewel contract with United looks like they are playing both sides of the coin. Nothing like your loyal union being loyal to the pilots and loyal to management at the same time. ALPA is part of the problem!

 

I treat this as a job now. Not a career. I have kids in the corporate world. They do the job, and leave it there. I do the same. Sick calls fix things when my attitude needs improving.

My major point is this: Extending the age limit to 67 won't fix a pilot shortage. Career earnings, logical career path and progression, career stability, and high entry level pay along with high level exit plan will fix it. It will take 20 years of sustained airline profitability to do this.

The gang bang style of airline expansion and growth that management has embarked upon is foolish. Management is driving the pilot shortage. They keep buying airplanes at record rates. Insane. If they were worried about the supply of qualified pilots then they wouldn't have bought so many damn airplanes. The sky is crowded. Terminals are packed. Heck you need to take 3 aspirin ff your going to wait in a TSA line. Airplanes are severely over crowded. Fights and violence on airplanes every day. The traveling public is in a sardine can from check in at the airport to arriving at their destination. Airlines just keep buying planes and adding capacity. Management is trying to "break the shortage of pilots" by ordering so many planes. Tehy are trying to influence the supply/demand side of the labor equation. Their 2 biggest costs are labor and fuel. Not much they can do about fuel costs. So, labor....they want you to work for cheaper and don't care about the difference a 12 year CA makes or a 32 year CA. It's the same damn pay.

 

I agree with all of that. And something has to give. The problem is that the airlines are just a microcosm of corporate America. They aren't responsible to the people, the workers, the government, the environment, just the shareholders. all they care about is making more money. Corporate America is broken and nobody will ever fix it because otherwise you're socialist. Meanwhile we slide closer to a Russia style oligarchy every day.

Also I didn't mean to write my reply above to you. Fixed it.

 

You forgot to survey the vast majority of AME's.

They don't like the idea at all due to cognitive decline.

However, what will that do to the motivation of young aspiring pilots who are thinking of joining this career. It will make the pilot shortage worse.

 

Young & angry. Boring as hell.

 

Extending pay scales only serves to stretch out the time it takes to get to the max pay rate. You aren't actually making more money because there are more steps. Keep the 12 year step.

 

What would you say you do?
-sit on my tail most of the day watching and sometimes playing a multimillion dollar video game. Oh, and making hard decisions like "chicken or beef" and "can I turn off the light no one pays attention to anyways.
What should that require?
-fit into skinny jeans and run a sub 6 min mile. Next question.

 

Rumor floating around that the new FAA administrator is looking at either eliminating the madatory age limit or bumping it up to 70. So much for all this 67 talk. Need a new thread. Would not surprise me if true he has zero allegiance to ALPA. It's all about operating a sound air transportation system safely. Nice to see a non pilot running it again. Pilots just muck it up , look no further than the max debacle.