At Air Canada, all staff that worked 25 years or more get lifetime passes, and travel on a C2 status for life. It is terrible! We current employees cannot get on flights because good old granny bones who started with a some bloody predecessor airline called Beaver Air that you've never heard of, gets on with a hire date of 1959..lol I can hardly use my passes because of it. I think what BA is realising is that people are living longer, so these passes can have an impact on current employees staff travel. At AC, we are screwed basically until we are 80 years old, then we can finally get on the SYD flight..lol.
Thank God they make them retire at 65, or these old bags would work forever, hogging everything as they do. The crew check in centre at YVR: we call it Jurassic Park... where 23 years of service is considered junior!