Chevy weighs in!

 

There is an easy way to do a valid study. Assess yourself and those you fly with or drink beer with. After the early 50s, illness and disease begins to increase. That is just the way it is. They can increase the age to anything they want. The result will be a higher disability load on the carrier.

 

No doubt about it. The rebuttal concerns marathon men/women/hybrids, who still clear all the hurdles jr.s can. It’s like Hogan said, “if you’re good enough, you’re big enough”

 

This is true. But we as a society are at a point where you cannot terminate someone's employment because their demographic might be *statistically* less productive or more costly due to health factors... employers would love nothing more than to leverage modern technology (exams, genetic testing) to cherry pick the healthiest and potentially most productive workers. Very slippery slope, and there's a reason we don't allow it.

The old airline astronaut physicals were 100% about that, and not safety.

There is of course a legit safety factor with advancing age, but that comes down to how stringent and how frequent do the exams need to be? At some point it becomes impractical... a 99 year old who passed an astronaut medical this morning could still keel over later this afternoon. I suspect that point of practicality is around age 70-ish.

 

If the airline can’t pay for it and the funds that support it deplete, it’ll become a bargaining chip in negotiations. Just the reality.

 

The same could be said if you were to replace the 99 in your example with any age.

 

One of the reasons we have two pilots in 121.

But the risk gets exponentially higher at some point after age 80.

 

There's a new wrinkle in this subject. It was hinted that Sen Duckworth's 'Experienced Pilots Save Lives Act' would include age 67 language in order for her to get tougher ATP requirements through subcommittee. The text has finally been published on her act and it does not include any age 67 language. You can read it here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-...%5D%7D&s=1&r=1

This creates a major problem for Duckworth, as I expected her to garner at least one R vote to get her act attached to the FAA Reauthorization Act. That now looks unlikely, as the only thing this bill does is increase ATP minimums.
So this leaves the FAA Reauthorization Act stuck in the Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation Subcommittee, which Sen Duckworth chairs and has refused to hold any meetings since Sen Sinema (I-AZ; caucuses with Ds) introduced legislation to lower ATP minimums. In fact, Sen Duckworth went on the Senate floor and gave a 'blood on your hands' speech with respect to lowering ATP minimums. See it here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c50746...ad-blood-hands

Bottom line is that this will new stall the FAA Reauthorization Act indefinitely because Duckworth can't get the Reauthorization Act out of subcommittee because she doesn't have enough votes. The odds of the Reauthorization Act passing before the end of September now looks unlikely. How long this is allowed to stay stuck in subcommittee before Democratic leadership applies pressure on the subcommittee is unknown. I do not expect them to have unlimited patience, as there is a lot of spending associated with the Reauthorization Act. This delay is likely to be negative for Sen Duckworth's political future within the Democratic party.
This also puts age 67 slighly less likely to be included in the FAA Reauthorization Act.

 

I agree with that, it's not on rails at the moment and is now in play again. The re-authorization will have to go forward, maybe a bit late, but it has to go sooner, not later. It's possible that they could simply move forward without any changes to pilot training and age, but those issues matter to at least a few folks and the way this works is there has to be something in it for everybody who's voting.

Also Tammy or the senate leadership can't just line it out and move forward, it would then have to go back to the house and see how much THEY care about it.

 

In this case stalled government is good government.