Lets look at the hard facts here.
Ageism alive and well? difficult to say at the moment with so few jobs about. What I can say is that at 41 and after sending out around 250 cv's in the last 18 months have only secured one interview. The instructing I did last year was through being in the right place at the right time and my current flying in piston twins through just making myself available.
My thoughts are that any of the major airlines are unlikely to look at me in the current climate, turboprop operators might once things pick up. The reasoning behind this as I understand is that us old uns tend to struggle through the type rating! have this on good authority.
In our favour is the fact we may stay a year or two longer with the company, but with fewer low hour guys about in that age bracket I can't really see that to be a major consideration when hiring.
I can only see age as a bonus in the sector I'm aiming at, single pilot air taxi ops, who would the guys in the back rather see, a young fresh faced guy of 20 or a more mature 40 year old!!
All in all, yep, the younger low hours guy is going to get the job, who said life was fair.
Flying F