I thought this was interesting:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...,4631217.story
chicagotribune.com
Retiring pilots put American in a bind
By Julie Johnsson
Tribune reporter
February 2, 2008
American Airlines is canceling flights and placing management pilots in its cockpits as it grapples with an onslaught of early pilot retirements that has left it short-handed for February.
On Friday, 143 pilots retired from American, the nation's largest airline. That's one of the largest pilot groups to depart en masse in airline history, amounting to about half the total number of American pilots who typically retire in a given year, according to the carrier's pilots union.
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=311565