Okay. Fine..I'm an ageist. Old people should be flying airliners.

Not necessarily. There is no "correct" retirement age for pilots, it's a tradeoff between risk on one hand and reasonableness or practicality on the other.

If you set the retirement age at the point where sudden incap starts to rise statistically, that would probably be about 30 years old. Most of us can agree that at some age you're too old, both due to sudden incap risk but also general and cognitive decline. Passing a medical and recurrent training at your leisure doesn't guarantee that you're sharp enough and have stamina enough to handle a "non-routine" emergency at 0200 body clock after being awake for 16 hours. Or that you won't stroke out when the poop hits the fan.

There's a reasonable range of uncertainty, between 65 and 70 IMO, and where we fall in that range will be determined by economics and politics.

My understanding is that non-121 pilots only require a 2nd class medical. If that is the case, the safety standard is lower. In any case, if this was purely about safety, there wouldn’t be an age limit, there would be a lot more stringent and stricter medical requirements than the current 1st class medical.

Nobody ever said that about age 60, age 60 was a political hack job by the CEO of AA to get rid of troublesome senior CA's who happened to be union agitators.

When it came time to raise the age to 65, the FAA naturally had to consider any safety ramifications, they do that for any regulatory relaxation.

Age 65 limit is more reasonably about safety.

It's not purely about safety, it's a tradeoff between safety, practicality and economics. As is every other facet of aviation regulation.

Pilot age is just harder to quantify with science or engineering. Age 60 was not enacted because old guys were crashing airplanes. Age 65 has not resulted in old guys crashing airplanes. Absent that, there's a lot of grey area in this topic.

There’s a lot of 62-year old grasshoppers suddenly envious of ants.

No kidding. I remember flying with these, they are the "pay your dues" drum beaters that have never really paid any themselves.

If the airlines were smart, they'd bring back pensions, kill the 401Ks and then lobby for pilots to work till they drop, voila no pension expense. People would probably be shocked by the number that would do just that.

Pensions? I pray I never see another pension that can be erased via bankruptcy.

It's normal for the young guys to keep the age at 65 so they can move up, it's also normal for the older guys to want to have the chance to keep flying. I guess will see if Congress passes the bill. No one has addressed the elephant in the room. Will you pass your medical as you get older?