solution: reduce retirement age!

[thewwIIace]

just an idea, these are extraordinary times we are in, and we are in unknown ground here never seen before. the facts: airlines are to make a huge loss, fact: they must reduce staff numbers, fact: the senior guys are a higher cost base. the idea i heard being mooted would be to reduce the retirement age 5 years in each airline, ie BA would go from 55 to 50. it would work two fold, reduce staff numbers and secondly, the staff laid off would be there most expensive. hard for the older guys, but they have had a longer career and the younger guys are just starting off with young familys etc, the impact is less on an oldy to a newy! i know, they will say this will ****** up pensions etc, but surely it is better for a majority this way because companies are in a position for their first time that ALL could lose their jobs.

[CP32]

In principle Ace you are quite right, but with BA retiring their people at 55, all that happens is that they come to the independants for their last five years to supplement their already very good pensions. This still screws up the younger pilots with their young families and mortgages! It's a problem with the system, not the ex BA people who are able to take advantage from it. The airlines are getting a very experienced pilot who is cheap to employ.
CP 32

[radeng]

The problem there is the extent to which early retirement reduces their pension. It may well be so much that they HAVE to get another job, rather than it being a 'only if I want to' situation. They would also be worse off than if they were made redundant, because of the lack of the redundancy pay, so they would get hit twice. There's also the question of whether or not company pension funds could afford the hit without drastically reducing pensions even further.

Those not in a company pension scheme would be better being laid off, too.

[packsonflite]

Nice One Ace! I presume, like me, you have some sort of financial planning in place based on retirement at a certain age. If I were forced to retire 5 years earlier than planned, I would be as deep in the financial do-do as a guy just starting out. Financial committments don't reduce with age, if anything they increase,(kids at uni, etc..) Any cutbacks should be on the basis of last-in, first-out. I know this didn't happen in Dan Air and from the sound of things isn't going to be the case in Virgin. I know several senior pilots in Dan Air who were financially devastated by that situation. The best way forward is for airlines to honour the agreements that are currently in place. :(