encore

Just announced that the pilot retirement age in Japan is being raised to 67.

The last thing we need is more stagnation and a bandaid allowing airlines to get by with their pilot supply problem instead of raising wages.

Pilots pushing for age 65 was one of the most selfish things I've ever seen and I hope I don't see anything like it happen again in the US.

Pilots' retirement age to be raised to 67 to cope with shortage ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

inline five

If only they could figure out how to work us while we're sleeping too:

Lobaeux

Our antiquated ideas about when to retire and a mandatory retirement need to be rethought.
People are living longer, it won't be very long at all before average life expectancy is over 80.

drinksonme

So your saying work till you die....

The new American Dream.

Lobaeux

No, I'm saying that a retirement age of 65 was great, when life expectancy was 70. Life expectancy has gone up, and will dramatically increase within the next 10, 20 and 30 years.

buzzpat

Just curious...if you were in your 50s, your company declared bankruptcy and your retirement was eliminated, what would you have done? Step aside for the young guys? Or find a way to support your family?

cencal83406

I don't think I want to die only 5 years after retirement.

Lobaeux

No, neither do I. But, if you live to be 95, which is altogether very possible for most Americans within the next 20 years, you would have 30 years of retirement. I don't care how great an airline retirement is, how much 401K contribution, you're not going to financially survive sitting around for 30 years living off retirement. You'll have to continue work.

pete2800

The retirement age has gone up 5 years since 2007. The life expectancy in the US has gone up 5 years since 1980. Before that, it went up 5 years since 1950. So in 30 years it changed, and then it took another 27 for it to change the same amount. That's not much acceleration.

We're not making any great strides in the life expectancy area, and to state that the retirement age should be raised for that reason doesn't make much sense. It's been about 7 years since the last change. Come back in another 20.

Life Expectancy at Birth by Race and Sex, 1930?2010

encore

Everyone out there benefited their whole careers from people ahead of them in seniority retiring when they hit age 60. It is a major driver in how this career works and part of our whole seniority based system.

Just because you had a bad roll of the dice doesn't mean it isn't selfish to hit pause for everyone when you're at the top and steal dollars and time from the pilots below you who are playing by the same rules you did your whole career.

It didn't give everyone 5 more years at the top. It gave everyone 5 more years where they were at that moment. For some at the top, many who very self-servingly argued for it, that was a widebody captain position at a major. For many others though, that was as a regional FO, as a flight instructor, as a furloughed pilot. All of whom now had to worry more about supporting their family because someone who didn't financially plan for a bad day decided to steal that from them by changing the rules.

Personally, I don't want to work to 65. But now I HAVE TO in order to get to the position in my career I would've otherwise attained by that age of 60.


Not only that, but it put a 5 year pause on the pilot supply problem that allowed airlines to get by with 5 more years of sub-par contracts, 5 more years of outsourcing flying to the lowest bidder, etc. It screwed a lot of people from a lot of directions.