Age 60

[330 Man]

LHR Rain,

Once again you have unloaded so much crap that your eyes have turned brown. You and I have gone the rounds of the loss of retirement and you obviously have no interest in the truth or reality of the subject.

What stidies are you referring too. In our last argument you stated more than once that the pilots in the states are paid so much more than others. If that is true, how will you make the same money no matter how long you work. At my previous company I took a 58%pay cut after 9/11. How do your studies deal with that reality?

Why should anyone "get out of the way of the younger pilots?"
When you are hired, the job is yours until you are fired, forced to retire, or the company goes out of business. The job will be there for the younger pilots when I decide to give it up, and not when you decide I should give it up.

There is no one in this career that is working under the same rules now as when they started. This is one of the most dynamic professions in the world. It is changing daily. The managers of airlines change the rules as often as they see fit. And we have no choice but to go along. The absurdity of this statement is even more profound when you consider that you are with Emirates, who change the rules daily. That is the way it goes. You also have to keep in mind that if the older pilots had not insisted on rule changes over the years, we would all be working under the same rules and conditions of the 1960's. To say that " a select few want to change the rules in the twilight of their careers" is nothing more than the rantings of a little boy trying to play in a mans game. In the states alone, your "select few" are nearly 20% of the pilots flying for the major airlines. United is 11000 pilots and Usair is 6500 pilots. Delta and Northwest will have pension adjustments by the end of the year. All of us who lost our pensions have 2 choices to make it up, work longer or make more. There is no way to do the latter, so we must do the former.

How do you keep from changing horses in midstream with all of the airlines that have gone out of business in the last 15 years. Your a young man with an education, please tell us all how to keep a company from failing and workers loosing jobs!

France is not standing up for crap! They, like you have their heads in the sand!

The fact that you mantion marriages and ex wives shows how immature, ignorant, and silly you are. For every one pilot who must work for alimony I will show you ten who have to work because they lost their jobs and retirement and have been financially ruined.

And finally, The age 60 rule has been here since the 1950's and has nothing to do with safety. It never had anything to do with safety. The head of American Airlines, had a relative, (brother in law I think) that was head of the CAB.(civil aeronautics board). The CAB was in charge of aviation in the states before dereglation, and during the 50's it also did the what the FAA and NTSB do now. American was having "problems"with it's senior pilots over 60 years old. At the time there was no manditory retirement age. The older pilots were putting pressure on management for a better retirement plan that was making life for management unbearable. There were mini strikes and other job actions. So the head of American airlines got his brother in law to set a manditory retirement age of 60 to get rid of the old guys. And it worked. CAB trotted in the doctors on the payroll to testify in the hearings and said"there is a chance that a pilot over 60 may not be as safe". The CAB and AMR management knew that congress would never go for it if they tried the economic approach, so they used a phoney age/safety argument and congress bought it. We have been stuck with the law ever since. IT IS NOT NOW, NOR HAS IT EVER BEEN ABOUT SAFETY.

It is only about economics.

I wish you would be a little more sensitive to the problems that some pilots have had in their careers. After all you will one day be an older pilot defending yourself to a young pup like you, and I am sure it will piss you off too!

Grow up!

330 Man