Interesting to note that as a so-called professional group, already, remarkable personal attacks are emerging together with the odd humorous throw away line from the envious and immature. These distractions illustrating an alarming lack of ability to remain focused which is, in fact, a very basic requirement of the profession. Returning to the thread, of course Captain Bayley has a case. The cut-off is arbitrary and has no place. It was a ICAO move back in the early nineties ( I think). Local Regulatory Authorities were left to comply or stick with outdated policy. Most complied. I worked for a ME outfit who made a right mess of even understanding the new guideline. To be fair, they suffered a local labour law requirement for ALL expats to cease working at age 60. The company would have, as a first step, to change the local labour law in order to get the local CAA to comply with new ICAO ruling.
Me & other 59 year-olds watched with bated breath. We all reckoned that another 5 years, after age 60 would cream off a very nice experience. All neighbouring airlines went to 65 but my company just didn't get it and for a while, we went into one year contracts while the company continued to make it even more messy. In the end, they just sited local labour law & gave everyone the bullet.
Like Captain Bayley, I took up my case, got expensive lawyers involved but went head to head with some very dirty fighters & got booted out in, admittedly, one of the cleverest stitch ups of all time.
Of course there should be NO age-limit.Even more daft, MOLs and the like together with having to be crewed only with someone of a factored, lower age. The thought of the Captain being the last to board via a high loader gives a commercially impactful reason to think things through in a commercial world but I leave the follow-on one liners to those more inclined.
41c here chaps. Pass the JD & coke and I'm heading for my private pool for my bi-annual Base Check in the faithful Lidle's inflatable. You know, the one that looks like a BA B747. Maybe that's why Nigel keeps turning base, low over my villa in order to get a good look at us, forced out of our careers at very early ages. Good luck Wayne.