Originally Posted by
CSU_Ram
To each his own. I just remember one guy who I flew with in the olden days. He'd strap on 50 lbs of rocks and climb mountains. He'd kayak the Inside Passage in Alaska. When he was forced to retire at Age 60 he was probably in better shape than the new hires coming on the property.
The only difference between the Part 121 pilots and the Part 135 pilots is REGULATION. While our passengers are buying individual seats, their passengers are chartering the entire airplane. So what's the difference between us and the 75 year old Gulfstream pilots passing my jet on the CEPAC routes every day.
None that I can see. Passing a 1st class physical should be the ONLY limitation on a pilot's career.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I don't think that's going to be much of a solution. Realistically the further you are past 65, the fewer who *will* be able to pass a first class, ad the fewer who *want* to keep flying. Obviously one can point at certain individuals still flying, but I suspect that if we just did away with the mandatory retirement age, we'd find thet the percentage of pilots who were both able to maintain a first class medical *and* wanted to continue full time employment after age 67, was a fairly small percentage.
Add to that, that may pensions and other retirement schemes are designed around retirement at age 65-67. One of my co-workers just went thru this. He's a flight engineer, so not subject to mandatory retirement, but he retired, not because he wanted to retire, but he had reached a point where staying employed longer was actually causing him to lose retirement. benefits.
Additionally I think that you'd also have some pretty strenuous push-back from a number of groups on a move like this.
But, this is all based on the false premise that there's a pilot shortage. There isn't. If you asked a hundred pilots what their top three airlines to retire from, if they could choose, and you visited the recruiting departments of those airlines, I'm pretty sure you'd find that those airlines aren't having any difficulty at all getting more applicants than they have positions, by a wide margin. The airlines crying "pilot shortage!!!" are the ones who are not offering a competitive package of compensation and schedule.