Pilot Sues For Forced Retirement
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Sadly that court case will not affect the EU age limit, but that one is under review and will most likely increase at some point, which is actually a goos thing in my view.
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An emotive subject indeed, pensions ultimately are not going to be worth what they were sold as, just a fact of life, and for those who have been either prudent or lucky enough with finances, then they'll have the choice of retiring early if they wish.
Others, like many have said would prefer to carry on working for longer, if they are fit and able, then there is no reason to. Taking any active fit person and grounding them (aviation or other) can have worse results, I know of an a/c engineer now in his 80's and still working a full week on engines, his knowledge is phenomenal as is his work, if he stopped, I wouldn't see him lasting long doing nothing at home.
So, why not take that vast pool of knowledge and hard won practical experience and keep using it ? Let the younger generation come up and take the left seat, but use the old timers in the right to pass on the wisdom that one day may come in very useful. Do it on a one year rolling contract, subject to all medicals etc, lower pay possibly, but good perks and benefits, and offer them the option that when it comes time to hang up the hat, if they want to carry on in a ground roll, ie training, then let them...
Paperwork, Procedures and Theory don't always beat age, wisdom and experience ...
Others, like many have said would prefer to carry on working for longer, if they are fit and able, then there is no reason to. Taking any active fit person and grounding them (aviation or other) can have worse results, I know of an a/c engineer now in his 80's and still working a full week on engines, his knowledge is phenomenal as is his work, if he stopped, I wouldn't see him lasting long doing nothing at home.
So, why not take that vast pool of knowledge and hard won practical experience and keep using it ? Let the younger generation come up and take the left seat, but use the old timers in the right to pass on the wisdom that one day may come in very useful. Do it on a one year rolling contract, subject to all medicals etc, lower pay possibly, but good perks and benefits, and offer them the option that when it comes time to hang up the hat, if they want to carry on in a ground roll, ie training, then let them...
Paperwork, Procedures and Theory don't always beat age, wisdom and experience ...
Avoid imitations
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I'm only guessing, but those that need to work beyond 65 (or even 55, realistically) are probably those who played away on a night stop, knocked up some poor cabin crew lassie with questionable taste, and are now paying for an expensive divorce. The younger generation should not be paying for your foolishness!
I'm still with my original wife, and we've been together forty five years now. Like it or not, life is a long term competition, despite what the lefties made later generations think at school on non-competitive sports days where every child must be a winner!
Once my pension pot is big enough (if ever), becomes available and I can afford to live on my savings without going to work, I will. I can't wait to make up for countless nights lost to detachments, overnight stops, long days, extremely short nights, missed meals, etc etc. Not to mention countless family occasions I've not been around for. As soon as I can, I'll happily sod off to tinker around in my garden and muck about mending old motorbikes.
Blame successive governments for moving the retirement goalposts by knocking the state pension back, one year for me but a ridiculous six years for my wife at a time of life when there is little to be done except carry on working or rob a bank. Unfortunately, the banks seem to be better at robbing us than vice versa.
Just to clarify as several have asked:
The CAA isnt there to keep pilots healthy or to treat them. It exists to minimise the risk of harm to the public, primarily from incapacitation. Thus whether a particular pathology will cost you your medical depends on the risk of incapacitation. The biggest risk in pilots with no known or identified issues is cardiovascular - a heart attack or a stroke. The CAA set down its own level of acceptability, accepting the risk is never zero as others have pointed out.
The risk of a 70 year old healthy pilot having a heart attack or stroke today is the same as the risk for a 50 year old colleague in the 1970s (dont quote me on exact ages and dates!!!). So if it was acceptable for the 50 year old to fly in 1970, it is acceptable for the 70 year old to fly today on a purely actuarial and scientific basis. Otherwise you are moving the goal posts.
I am always amazed, when this comes up, how many posters defend or support the status quo. I know Pprune isnt representative, but I can think of no other profession where turkeys vote for Christmas like this. Average life expectancy at 60 is possibly over 30 years and if you have flown all your working life and dont want to vegetate it is not that easy to see how such individuals will easily assimilate into society.
The CAA isnt there to keep pilots healthy or to treat them. It exists to minimise the risk of harm to the public, primarily from incapacitation. Thus whether a particular pathology will cost you your medical depends on the risk of incapacitation. The biggest risk in pilots with no known or identified issues is cardiovascular - a heart attack or a stroke. The CAA set down its own level of acceptability, accepting the risk is never zero as others have pointed out.
The risk of a 70 year old healthy pilot having a heart attack or stroke today is the same as the risk for a 50 year old colleague in the 1970s (dont quote me on exact ages and dates!!!). So if it was acceptable for the 50 year old to fly in 1970, it is acceptable for the 70 year old to fly today on a purely actuarial and scientific basis. Otherwise you are moving the goal posts.
I am always amazed, when this comes up, how many posters defend or support the status quo. I know Pprune isnt representative, but I can think of no other profession where turkeys vote for Christmas like this. Average life expectancy at 60 is possibly over 30 years and if you have flown all your working life and dont want to vegetate it is not that easy to see how such individuals will easily assimilate into society.
The reasoning behind this, medical checks miss a lot of unhealthy people, so do operational checks.
https://www.icao.int/NACC/Documents/...ICAO-Evans.pdf
https://www.icao.int/NACC/Documents/...ICAO-Evans.pdf
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Rad girl.rather than explain your logic you've simply repeated yourself. In considering risk, we measure by present day comparitors not against some arbitrary point as you've done, in the 1970's. A 777 with one engine out is probably safer than a Vickers Vimy with two. By your bonkers logic it would be ok to dispatch single engine.
The fundamental point that you're point-blank refusing to address is that medical risk factors get much higher with age, especially above age 65; it's not an arbitrary point. If you lake the trouble to look at the report posted above by swh it explains this graphically.
The fundamental point that you're point-blank refusing to address is that medical risk factors get much higher with age, especially above age 65; it's not an arbitrary point. If you lake the trouble to look at the report posted above by swh it explains this graphically.
Sorry Shotone, but this isnt about increasing risk, it is about whether the risk exceeds the arbitrary level previously set by the CAA. I agree it is arbitrary but the regulator had to set a statistical probability, just the same as they do eg for approving elevated helipad departures. We are not talking about taking off with one engine out as these pilots are fit - they have passed their medical. the analogy is the risk of an engine failing in flight..... just as ETOPS is determined by the probability of an engine failing, and I believe the ranges have increased with engine reliability, so the same applies to pilots
Interesting powerpoint SWH...to an extent. It shows actually that flying to 70 is OK, that the whole system of medicals is dubious and that decisions are taken by a show of hands in a committee room not by an analysis of the science.
Interesting powerpoint SWH...to an extent. It shows actually that flying to 70 is OK, that the whole system of medicals is dubious and that decisions are taken by a show of hands in a committee room not by an analysis of the science.
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If after retiring, your only thought is that you'll vegetate, I can see why you don't want to retire. Upon my retirement I would like to spend my free time doing all those hobbies that I wish I had the free time for now!
I am at total odds as to why anyone would wish to continue into their late 60s
To all those stating that they wouldn’t want to be flying 800+ hours a year at age 65+, why wouldn’t you work part time?
I foresee some kind of compromise coming at some point. Whether it will reach U.K shores after Brexit is another matter.
I foresee some kind of compromise coming at some point. Whether it will reach U.K shores after Brexit is another matter.
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
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Shot oneThink you may be using overall population figures rather than aviation/pilots specific? Some time ago I read a study that showed that within the aviation world the age bracket of 44 to 58 was the high risk area.
Thanks for the link SWH.
I was a proponent of letting people fly on if they were able to pass a medical. Rightly or wrongly retirement is very detrimental for a lot of pilots mental health and happiness. I've witnessed a few in the shrinks office. But some of the graphs in the slides are quite compelling.
I was a proponent of letting people fly on if they were able to pass a medical. Rightly or wrongly retirement is very detrimental for a lot of pilots mental health and happiness. I've witnessed a few in the shrinks office. But some of the graphs in the slides are quite compelling.
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How could one base a statistical case either way on pilot statistics when retirement age is 65? There is a huge body of evidence for over 65's. Nothing I've posted relies on my personal opinion.
"The report shows it's actually OK to fly to 70..". No it doesn't Radgirl, the report is very balanced but that's a total misrepresentation. In any case Mr Bailey isn't asking to raise to 70, but abolish the limit entirely. Presumably he feels the lower age limit is also discriminatory? Everyone's entitled to their opinion but in the end the one that matters will be that of the travelling public and whether they are prepared to accept a large increase in the number of pilots dying at the controls.
"The report shows it's actually OK to fly to 70..". No it doesn't Radgirl, the report is very balanced but that's a total misrepresentation. In any case Mr Bailey isn't asking to raise to 70, but abolish the limit entirely. Presumably he feels the lower age limit is also discriminatory? Everyone's entitled to their opinion but in the end the one that matters will be that of the travelling public and whether they are prepared to accept a large increase in the number of pilots dying at the controls.
Whilst there may be an argument for individuals to continue past a mandatory retirement age I do not for one second believe the medical and training assessment is capable of identifying those individuals.
Until the class one medicals are significantly better (and more tailored to the individual) and the individual training assessments are better than they are today there has to be an arbitrary cut off age.
We have all heard of pilots who've keeled over the day after a class one and we all know pilots that can put it on for the 2 days of a sim but would fall to pieces at 3am at 30 west whilst they've been half asleep.
Until the class one medicals are significantly better (and more tailored to the individual) and the individual training assessments are better than they are today there has to be an arbitrary cut off age.
We have all heard of pilots who've keeled over the day after a class one and we all know pilots that can put it on for the 2 days of a sim but would fall to pieces at 3am at 30 west whilst they've been half asleep.
... entitled to their opinion but in the end the one that matters will be that of the travelling public and whether they are prepared to accept a large increase in the number of pilots dying at the controls.]
The travelling public in Australia, Canada and I dare say other enlightened jurisdictions seem to have no issue with a lack of compulsory retirement at 65. I know of jet and turbo prop captains in their seventies.
I also cannot remember an incapacitation in Australia that was not food/gastro related.
The age limit is arbitrary, by definition and so should be challenged.
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Last time we had this discussion, 411A was one of the strongest advocates for no age limit for pilots. He used himself as an example. Passed all medicals with flying colors. Flew his L-1011 like nobody else.
He died suddenly between flights. Luckily not while he was doing a cirling approach inside 2SM in ****ty weather.
I’m not one of the young ones. I’ve seen the goal post moved from 55 (early retirement) to 60, to 65.
In my world this has been done by small groups of pilots who want one thing. More money. Work while also getting your pension money. Or take your pension money from your old outfit and work for less for whatever company that wants you.
Norwegian, Air Atlanta, etc.
Money. Greed. And far worse than P2F. These guys lower the top pay in the industry.
He died suddenly between flights. Luckily not while he was doing a cirling approach inside 2SM in ****ty weather.
I’m not one of the young ones. I’ve seen the goal post moved from 55 (early retirement) to 60, to 65.
In my world this has been done by small groups of pilots who want one thing. More money. Work while also getting your pension money. Or take your pension money from your old outfit and work for less for whatever company that wants you.
Norwegian, Air Atlanta, etc.
Money. Greed. And far worse than P2F. These guys lower the top pay in the industry.
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To those who recommend retire and get a life I ask to do what? Folks are motivated by a lot of things, if it is to continue flying so what? It may just be that they still get a hell of a kick out of it. One PPRuner has just ticked 86 years and still working as a 737 sim instructor, and why shouldn't he? Live your own life and stop telling others how they should live theirs.
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To all those stating that they wouldn’t want to be flying 800+ hours a year at age 65+, why wouldn’t you work part time?
I foresee some kind of compromise coming at some point. Whether it will reach U.K shores after Brexit is another matter.
I foresee some kind of compromise coming at some point. Whether it will reach U.K shores after Brexit is another matter.
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The pilots i know that keeled suddenly over and either died or ended up as a vegetable in a bed in a somewhere, where all in their late 30ies or early 40ies, or retired for a few years with apparently not enough to do. Usually while base jumping or stuff like that in the case of the old geezers.
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Is he mad !
Heading up to retirement myself and I just can’t wait to get away from the airline environment of pilot de-skilling and over reliance on automation in the name of illusionary safety.
I have no intention of giving up flying and intend to do a bit of ferry flying and some basic instruction but all without the 3 AM starts !
I have no intention of giving up flying and intend to do a bit of ferry flying and some basic instruction but all without the 3 AM starts !