I did my whole face with Effudex about 10 yrs. ago. Never again. I would rather go back thru SERE school or die of melanoma before I would do it again.

""ALPA really screwed the pooch on allowing the age to increase to 65. I'm sure they'll do it again.""

ALPA did not allow anything. ICAO issued a ruling that pilots could fly to 65 and the FAA agreed those pilots could fly in US airspace. Prior to this the FAA had won the many age discrimination law suits on the basis of safety. That argument was now dead since the FAA had just agreed it was safe. There were several lawsuits and legislative action in the works to raise the age to 65 or eliminate the retirement age completely. There was zero chance of preventing it from going to 65. ALPA did the smart thing and tried to shape how the age change would be introduced to do the least harm. They were successful in that. Fighting it would have only ended in thousands of pilots already over 60 coming back to work and furloughs for junior pilots.

You're a confusing quoter.

So if Japan allows you to fly til your 68th birthday, 3 years longer, can they fly outside of Japan on ICAO rules or are they limited to inside of Japan?

BTW, according to someone I talked to at DALPA, or acted like they were, something like 10% of the pilots over age 60 are out on sick leave. It's less than 4 percent for the rest of the airline a majority of whom do return to the line.

That cost money too. My brother-in-law is a comptroller, he'll tell you that they don't want to employ people at his company over 55 or maybe it was 60 because their medical costs increase 30%. It's a lot of money.

So, they don't. Out you go based on... performance. He's approaching 60 too so he's not one to want that either, just says that's how it is. IDK how much money you necessarily save flying guys to 68 if 1/10 are not flying and probably will not fly again.

Not arguing with your point but that isn't my experience flying with most 744A's.

There was no option but to do this in Japan..., the union didn't want it nor did the older pilots really, but the situation in Japan is worse in terms of a pilot shortage than in most places, both ANA and JAL are growing and taking deliveries of new A/C and they are running a deficit in terms of hiring VS retirements.., this really doesn't fix the problem, it just pushes it a couple of years down the line..., not only that, the medicals are so tough that just a handful of pilots that want to fly up to 67 will actually get to do it.

The situation in Japan will get like the situation in Russia with the hiring of foreigner and I wouldn't be surprised if JAL will announce another contract for foreign pilots as well.

I sat down and had a few cold ones with a JAL 787 crew recently, they are having a lot of cancelations due to lack of crews and the older guys don't really want to fly pass 60, they are offering big bonuses to be able to get people to agree to sign an additional contract for flying over 60..!

The best studies I know of, one done on AAL pilots in the early 90s and one done on BA pilots in the 80s both smash the myth about pilots dying sooner after retirement. In both studies, they found pilots lived years longer if they made it to retirement than the general population. None of this is simple. How many pilots made it to retirement? A pilot who passes two physicals a year is in better shape than the general population at age 60. Add to that we undoubtedly live a healthier lifestyle today than our predecessors. Lots of variables, but the "you're gonna die right after you retire" line is BS. Also, the BA study actually broke down long vs. short haul and the long haul pilots lived longer than the short haul pilots, but long haul didn't include 16 hour polar flights back then.

From a physiological standpoint, cardio events spike upwards beginning in the mid-40s and cognitive decline begins in the 50s, indicating the retirement age should be lowered if we were basing this strictly on safety.

ALPA did a very poor job of telling that side of the story and as a result, a lot of pilots will forever blame ALPA for age 65. The information battle is a key part of the war for hearts and minds.

They put out lots of information on the subject and why they did what they did. Pilots always want someone to blame.