Pilot Sues For Forced Retirement

[Enecosse]

Originally Posted by Gordomac

Parabellum ; interesting similarity was the fact that also, a long time ago, Swissair advertised in the back of Flight Mag for DEFO on all fleets. The queue stretched from Zurich to most places on the planet earth. I was rejected at the very first stage because I was too old at (whatever I was then) to join the Pension Scheme. I raced down to Zurich, banged on the door, begged & pleaded and asked if I could join but make my own pension arrangements. Gosh, ask the Swiss to change the rules, just for me ? Again, on thread, not a regulatory age rule but just as arbitrary and rather more daft than I would have liked.

I do , occasionally , wonder , how life would have turned out after 30 odd years with Swiss, private swiss pension, lovely big swiss chalet in the mountains, but not given the chance because of a pension rule restricting employment. Silly lot but they do make good clocks & the chocs are delicious.

Race to the bottom, bag of peanuts every Friday will be good thanks. Swiss didn't turn out so good, first went to the wall, Goverment 'persuaded' a perfectly good airline, Crossair, to get involved. They then by duplicitous means had Crossair morphed into 'New' Swiss, a lot of people stuffed. Crossair had the prettiest hosties, yep I know sexist and un PC, but a fact, (random fact), non the less.

[parabellum]

Gordomac - Yes, like you, I got knocked back by Swissair because I was too old for their pension scheme. Did hear from an ex Laker FO who made the grade that it wasn't such a hot number apart from the salary, very regimented, very steep gradient on the flight deck and between fleets. Looking back I'm happy I lived without that much higher level of stress and strain, could have done with a better pension though!

[Gordomac]

Thanks guys. Feel a lot better. Good luck to Wayne in his endeavours.

[Jimfor65]

Age 65 discrimination

I have been in contact with Wayne Bayley and I plan to support his discrimination fight concerning forced retirement at age 65.. You can Google "Wayne Bayley" and read the news articles that came out last month. Wayne is looking for anyone that wants to support this fight. He has been in touch with a fund raiser called "Crowd Justice" who specializes in Legal Crowd Funding. The site will launch soon and possibly this week. As soon as Wayne sets it up and it's ready, I will post details. If you want the option to fly past 65, I suggest supporting this. If successful it could be a spring board for claims to begin in other countries as well.

[w.bayley]

The answers to the CAA defence went in on Friday. Surprisingly they have not produced any evidence on data to suggest that the incapacitation risks exceed 1% after 65. The "day in Court" promises to be fascinating!
Wayne Bayley

[w.bayley]

Hi,
There is a link below to a BBC interview which briefly sets out the arguments for removing the age limit on pilot medicals. I hope you will spare 2 minutes to listen to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn2fwbjTWTM

and an additional link for you to help the cause.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/notoagediscrimination/If after you have and a chance to look at the links you believe that we can help each other I would love to hear from you.RegardsWayne

[Jimfor65]

Wayne is attacking the 65-year barrier via age discrimination. There is no evidence to support your 65th birthday as the age for not being capable of flying past 65. The reason for the restriction is to ensure that the 1% incapacity risk is not breached. There is a convincing body of evidence to show that the 1% threshold is not reached until age 80. The CAA has a legal duty to remove all discrimination including on grounds of age. This is where Wayne’s legal action is aimed. If Wayne is successful it will be a good spring board for others to mount claims in the USA and other countries. WATCH WAYNE’s YOUTUBE VIDEO. Go to YouTube and put FLY PAST 65 in the YouTube search. We also have a dot com website at flypast65. The fund raiser called "Crowd Justice" who specialize in Legal Crowd Funding has been launched. Go to the crowdjustice website and put age discrimination in the search. You will find Wayne's funding site there. Any amount is welcomed no amount too small. Collected money goes to the firm of lawyers and is not directed to Wayne. It is all carefully monitored. We need to get the Crowd Funding site circulated among interested pilots and non-pilot individuals. Please pledge an amount for the fight and circulate this information to support this effort. [color=#000000] Giving experienced and healthy pilots the option to fly past age 65 would solve the retirement dilemma and financial stress for those older pilots that don’t have enough money saved for retirement.

[winglit]

I know so many career commercial pilots who can't afford to retire at 65 because of the string of ex wives that need to be paid off!

[bafanguy]

Originally Posted by winglit

I know so many career commercial pilots who can't afford to retire at 65 because of the string of ex wives that need to be paid off!

I've heard comments such as this made for years about why the old guys can't move on; not sure how accurate it is to claim that older pilots have a "... string of ex wives ..." disproportionate to the population at large. I have my suspicions about why such comments are made and by whom but I'll bite my lip due to a lack of reliable data to support or debunk the allegation.

One must be careful about statistics and where he gets them. I've tried a time or two but came up empty handed. Maybe someone can provide proper data from an independent, unimpeachable source ?

This is all I've found is this pop culture mention of pilot divorce rate:

"We’ve noticed that people often search for “police divorce rate”, “teacher divorce rate”, and “pilot divorce rate”. They must think for one reason or the other that these three professions are most likely to get separated, but have we got the news for them – none of those professions is among our eleven. For the sake of reference you should know that teachers have a divorce rate of 15.49, police officers 15.01, and pilots, even less than that, with their rate being 10.96, whereas the national average for all occupations is around 16.96%. So it turns out that their rates are even lower than the national average! (Yes, you just go ahead and marry a pilot!)"

https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/1...-rates-595076/

[IcePack]

Back in the day one of our older pilots was working for allowances only, when colleagues with wives & children had been made redundant. His answer “just keeping my hand in old boy”. Yep he was on a full British Airways Pension. Not sure of this money angle quoted in this thread as if your house is not in order by 65 then well imho it is just greed.

[What The]

Sure, keep working.
But go to the bottom of the seniority list.
Anything else is pure selfishness.

[bafanguy]

Originally Posted by What The

Sure, keep working.
But go to the bottom of the seniority list.
Anything else is pure selfishness.

There may be greed or selfishness at work in some cases but I suspect there are too many personal variations on a theme to make blanket statements about motive.

Theoreticians can speculate on what a particular phase of life is like and tell others how they MUST live it but I subscribe to my Gramp's statement that "Ya don't know it 'til ya live it.".

Planning for events decades in the future is a tricky business and based on assumptions that may or may not hold true (with not being more likely).

When it's no longer a theory, one's point of view may need to change.

[I retired at 56 y/o when the max was 60...and have been married to the same lady for 40 years...haven't touched an airplane in 15 years...I know some stuff about being retired cuz I AM. No theory involved]

[Capt Ecureuil]

Originally Posted by BAengineer

Most of the BA Captains I have met seem to have about 3 ex wives and numerous kids scattered around the globe, so I'm sure how many will want to work on simply for the love of the job - more for the love of the paycheck at the end of the month. If you dont have any limit as others have pointed out you would slow up the promotion ladder significantly and the co-pilots with the get up and go will have got up and left for better prospects - which from a companies point of view isn't a good outcome.

Interesting conversation to have whilst waiting for the old fart to sign the tech log.

Meanwhile can you tell all the station staff at DFW that Captain Squirrel and Mrs Squirrel say "Hi" and that the old nutter still hasn't retired.

[brakedwell]

Originally Posted by Gordomac

Parabellum ; interesting similarity was the fact that also, a long time ago, Swissair advertised in the back of Flight Mag for DEFO on all fleets. The queue stretched from Zurich to most places on the planet earth. I was rejected at the very first stage because I was too old at (whatever I was then) to join the Pension Scheme. I raced down to Zurich, banged on the door, begged & pleaded and asked if I could join but make my own pension arrangements. Gosh, ask the Swiss to change the rules, just for me ? Again, on thread, not a regulatory age rule but just as arbitrary and rather more daft than I would have liked.

I do , occasionally , wonder , how life would have turned out after 30 odd years with Swiss, private swiss pension, lovely big swiss chalet in the mountains, but not given the chance because of a pension rule restricting employment. Silly lot but they do make good clocks & the chocs are delicious.

I was a 39 year old DC8 captain when the Swissair opportunity arose. Had I taken up their offer it would have meant paying over £100k into the pension fund and spending five years in the RHS of a DC 9 before moving to the RHS of a DC8. I stayed where I was.

[homonculus]

For those still supporting this arbitrary limit based on the need to help younger pilots gain command, I was interested in the news this week that a senior academic was taking Oxford University to a Tribunal for termination on age which they set not for safety but 'to promote diversity' and allow junior dons better career progression.

The safety issue will be argued in court in this case, and lets hope the CAA dont again hide behind the defence 'we cant afford to review the rules'. However manpower is a matter for industries, not individual employees, to resolve be it aviation or academia, and social engineering as a reason shows what scary things employers might get up to in the future if others stand idely by.

[INKJET]

Originally Posted by What The

Sure, keep working.
But go to the bottom of the seniority list.
Anything else is pure selfishness.

dont understand the logic of that argument, I could have retired a few years ago if measured by need to work ie monetary assets, but didn’t, if you are a committed Aviation professional then an arbitrary 100% to zero involvement might be difficult for some, maybe a 50% might be a sensible way forward.

There is of course already an additional cost employing pilots past post 60 with additional medical cost and restrictions on flying 2 60+ pilots together, but it happens and aircraft don’t fall out of the sky apparently

[bloom]

Originally Posted by winglit

I know so many career commercial pilots who can't afford to retire at 65 because of the string of ex wives that need to be paid off!

Buy a starter home. Live in it, love it and keep it repaired. Stick with your first wife, till Mr. Happy starts to loose interest , Then rent as needed.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/s...b&action=click

[w.bayley]

Fly Past 65

Good to see that among the posts which address the ""discrimination issue" rather than the "industrial or social issues" there is some support. Can the supporters visit the Crowd Justice site now please?
Change is possible if enough pilots each choose to make a small contribution.
wayne

[Nemrytter]

Originally Posted by Jimfor65

There is a convincing body of evidence to show that the 1% threshold is not reached until age 80.

Would you mind posting such evidence? I've been searching peer-reviewed medical literature but can't find much to support this claim.

[Gordomac]

Cripes, last time I looked, the forum ( or thread, or branch, or web............whatever...........) had been locked out. Powerful bods have re-opened because it really is interesting. BAFANGUY, great posts( or letters, or notes or memos.........whatever.......), I do concur. When the arbitrary retirement age was sixty but looked like it might go to 65 I quite liked the idea of creaming off the top salary for another 5 years. I was all prepared & ready to go, financially, at 60 but top end cream off what have put an additional, about, million UK in the bank. Great bonus to play with in my intended retirement home in Glendale, California. But, that's another story. Moreover, I agree with Baf, other reason was that I still, honestly, liked the job.

I go along with Company rules establishing an age limit in order to drive the promotion cycle . In my case, there was also a local ex-pat Labour Law to get around. I did suggest that those interested should have a quick whip-round , bung in a bown envelope & place under someone's table (worked before & still does) but getting pilots to dip into their pockets has, in my long experience, been not worthy of effort.

Brings me to comment on Wayne's plea for funding. Of course, back on thread, it is the Regulatory, completely arbitrary age cut-off which is being challenged. Many posting here get that and agree with it. However , geting us to stick our hands in our pockets would be the battle to watch with equal interest. Observation o f the Red Cross Charity & others involved in Tsunami (so-called) relief has taught me to move away from funding sites. Sorry.