Go home guys and play some golf. We do not need to increase the retirement age, give me a break! what is wrong with people? do you really not have a life?
This and comments about keeping one’s nose in the trough point to some surprising jealousy in our profession. Who are we to judge how much somebody ‘needs’ to earn?
Would we say the same about, say, musicians? “Please Mr McCartney and Mr Clapton, stop insisting on playing your instrument that you spent 40 years perfecting. Leave the music to the young ones and go and grow tomatoes”? (Music is not normally life threatening of course, apart from some other bands I could mention .........)
Owing to the seniority system that exists in most airlines, the young ones are held away from the LHS until the old ones retire. So the young ones want the old ones out as soon as possible so that they - the young ones - can earn more money. (Who is being mercenary or selfish there?). But the older person was there first - why shouldn’t s/he continue? “They are not fit enough” comes the reply. Many of them are indeed unfit - they eat a bad diet, are obese or morbidly obese and never do any exercise. But what about the ones that do keep themselves fit - why shouldn’t they carry on if they want to? Medical and SIM tests might have to adapt to check health and mental faculties more thoroughly, but that is not beyond the wit of man.
Governments tell the general public that they cannot retire at 65 any more - they will have to work for longer. Yet, in the airline profession, where we are scruitinised very carefully once or twice a year both for our performance AND our medical condition, there remains this culture of ‘retire early’.
You can’t have it both ways.