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-   -   Pilot Sues For Forced Retirement (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/610917-pilot-sues-forced-retirement.html)

slip and turn 15th Jul 2018 17:00


Originally Posted by Tandemrotor (Post 10197342)

A point of information if I may?

Specifying a retirement age for pilots, of 65 years. Is of course “discrimination”, and unarguably “deliberate”. However what it most definitely (currently) is NOT, is “unlawful”!

Indeed, quite the opposite is true. There are various protected characteristics. Only one of which is age. However, unlike all other protected characteristics, discrimination on the basis of age, most definitely CAN be legal. This is because certain Objective Justifications can be used to back up such things as compulsory retirement ages for certain professions. By all means research this if you are interested.

However, back to the above quote. It is actually the “current young ones” who ARE arguing to uphold the law. It is actually “the old one” seeking to change it. Having of course benefitted from the previous compulsory retirement of all his/her elders!

Which makes this quote rather interesting?

I couldn’t agree more!

In your "research" you've picked up totally the wrong end of all the sticks, I'm afraid! The unlawful age discrimination thing was done to death in the ATC forum years ago (at least as far as UK law was concerned). It is no different in the pilot age case. It has yet to be fully demonstrated (via test cases) that the current discrimination is lawful. In the ATC case the opposite was shown i.e. that discrimination against older ATC candidates was unlawful, and most tellingly, there was no appeal.

Herod 15th Jul 2018 18:30

Trossie,

A seniority system is a list of pilots, usually based on the date they joined the company. An argument for it is that it is difficult to pick a pilot for promotion to a bigger aircraft, command etc. any other way, since all pilots theoretically posses the same skills. It can also govern such things as bids for routes, days off etc. My old company used to have a separate list for Captains and First Officers. A F.O. on promotion would join the bottom of the Captain's list. It had the advantage that crewing for the less popular types (generally turboprops) was easier, since it was worth a few years on that type in order to be on the list. Once it was abandoned, many F.O.s stayed in the RHS until senior enough to move directly to the LHS of a jet. Conversely, in the event of redundancies, it was also of course an ideal "last in, first out" list.

Generally, airlines like the system (or at least did when I was active) since it helps retain pilots. The move to the bottom of another company's list isn't so attractive.

I'm sure things have changed in the years since i left the business, with the growth of the LoCos, P2F etc, but the basic principle is here. Current pilots, please update this.

B744IRE 15th Jul 2018 18:54

Many of us will not have a decent pension (Monarch etc) and after divorces and school fees will need to keep working.Others, like myself, just enjoy the flying and see no reason why we shouldn’t keep going if we are capable and fit.The CAA insist on a stress ECG at age 65 and every 4 years after that...my BP is 120/70 and my rate is 65%...so physically I am OK and in my prime at 66 flying for an SPO operation and loving it. My uncle worked as a dentist until 80+ in Australia. In my latter years as a B747 Management Training Captain I often stepped in to ferry aircraft or act as a Cruise Pilot so I see no reason why over 65 year old pilots cannot perform similar functions without any risk to the travelling public. I tried retirement for 6 weeks...it sucks!

beamer 15th Jul 2018 20:01

Bailed out at 62 and don't miss flying one iota despite 21k hours mil/civ. Couple of flights in light aircraft and a few glider launches have not re-ignited any urges to do more. I had a good innings with more than a few ups and downs but in the words of the late Ayrton Senna, the time came to 'stop, walk away and let it be'.

I know Wayne, albeit not well, but I wonder why he did not start this crusade a long time ago. Not so sure he would be so keen if he was flying into Turkey and Greece in the early hours but then he has been a longhaul baron for a very long time. One wonders how an extension to, say seventy, will go down with the younger generations of pilots. The current limit of 65 has been around for quite some time giving most ample opportunity to sort out their lives accordingly. That being said, I do understand the implications of airlines going bust allied to multi-marriages and second/third famillies. Equally a previous post said retirement sucks and I can quite understand that point of view; its not easy, even if you prepared for it by going part-time.

flyboyike 15th Jul 2018 20:29

This is part of why I don't particularly want to live much past 65, let alone work. Seems like odds are I'll either be an obstacle, a burden, or a meal ticket. None of the above sounds very enticing...

ShotOne 15th Jul 2018 20:56

"...in my prime at 66" Congratulations on being in better shape than many your age, 744 but sorryto say that doesn't mean you're in your prime. The brutal fact is you are many times more likely to suffer medical incapacitation now than when you were actually in your prime. And no, your 80+ dentist uncle didn't have hundreds of passengers sat behind him. Beamer. Wayne isn't asking for an extension to 70 but total abolition. No mention of any mitigation or additional medical checks.

parabellum 15th Jul 2018 21:34

We have been here before ShotOne. The “brutal fact” as you put it, from the information I have read, is that, for pilots the Critical period is from the age of 44 to 58. With a BP of 120 over 70 744 would appear to be in excellent health.

BGQ 15th Jul 2018 22:12

Juan Tugoh

In aviation I haven't seen a seniority system based on age. They are mostly based on length of employment. There are plenty of pilots younger than me in my airline.
Good luck with that argument !

BGQ 15th Jul 2018 22:18


Originally Posted by flyboyike (Post 10197201)
A few of them even have the intergrity to admit it, much to their credit.

Parabellum and Flyboylike

Yes absolutely and that is the same reason you guys want older pilots to leave .... for the jobs that bring the money. Are you prepared to admit that?

svhar 15th Jul 2018 22:25

There are lots of limits, you can buy alcohol at a certain age, get married at a certain age, drive a car at a certain age, fly an aeroplane at a certain age until a certain age. Why challenge all this? You know better than the legislator?

flyboyike 15th Jul 2018 22:45


Originally Posted by BGQ (Post 10197574)
Parabellum and Flyboylike

Yes absolutely and that is the same reason you guys want older pilots to leave .... for the jobs that bring the money. Are you prepared to admit that?

I HAVE admitted that, more than once, too. I fully admit that I'm selfish, I just don't understand why Capt Metzuselah's selfishness is somehow purer and better than mine, considering that said Capt Metzuselah couldn't wait until the gummers of HIS time got out of the way.

aterpster 16th Jul 2018 00:15


Originally Posted by Trossie (Post 10197348)
I have asked before: could somebody explain what a 'seniority system' is? There are many, many pilots who are not on any such system.

But please someone, explain what a seniority system is?

I can only speak to the U.S., where the Railway Labor Act governs U.S. airline pilots if they have a labor union. If so, the seniority system is established by law.

BGQ 16th Jul 2018 01:15


Originally Posted by flyboyike (Post 10197586)
I HAVE admitted that, more than once, too. I fully admit that I'm selfish, I just don't understand why Capt Metzuselah's selfishness is somehow purer and better than mine, considering that said Capt Metzuselah couldn't wait until the gummers of HIS time got out of the way.

Isn't the point that nobody's selfishness is superior or worse than any others so why the heck are most younger pilots banging on about the older pilots being selfish?

Should the debate just be about whether or not the current age limit is justified and or discriminatory without all the emotive crap largely but not exclusively coming from younger pilots?

hans brinker 16th Jul 2018 01:30


Originally Posted by Trossie (Post 10197348)
I have asked before: could somebody explain what a 'seniority system' is? There are many, many pilots who are not on any such system.

If I do some simple sums, it appears to me that if the odd captain doesn't retire at 65 and delays the odd first-officer/co-pilot from a promotion, that new captain, when he gets his promotion, will have the new advantage of being able to continue working longer himself and thus enjoying a very similar number of years as captain as he would have enjoyed under the old enforced retirement age. So where is the problem? In other words, being able to retire later is not only a benefit to old pilots but to ALL pilots!! (As they will all become old themselves one day.)

Also, there are endless predictions of growth in the airline industry, so surely that will create promotion opportunities for all those 'hard done by' junior pilots who are complaining about this causing them to lose promotion opportunities. It appears that with all those youngsters having the opportunities of growing airlines and increased life/job expectancy themselves that they do complain a bit much.

But please someone, explain what a seniority system is?

When I got hired I there were about 700 active pilots in the company, so I am 700 on the seniority list. We have 7 bases, so after training my whole class bid on which base we wanted to go (as everyone in the class has the same Date Of Hire (DOH), seniority in class was based on age. It took me a few months of new hire classes coming in behind me before I could transfer to the base I wanted. At the beginning of every month the company publishes schedules for the next month. All pilots bid on these schedules and they are awarded on seniority, so the most senior pilot in every base and seat gets his first choice, second one gets at worst second choice, and so all the way down until the most junior guy gets the leftover schedule (probably reserve, working every weekend). There is a system in place for trading/dropping/adding trips to your schedule, most companies this will be seniority based. Every October the company publishes a list of available vacation weeks, and these are bid on and awarded by seniority. As the company grows and people above you retire you get closer to upgrade, because upgrading is not based on merit, and there are no DECs. For me that happened after 3 years when I was pilot 650 (50 pilots above me had left) and the total group had grown to 1000 pilots. More than half the group was still above me, but there is always people who bypass upgrade, because the moment you take it you go from being one of the most senior FOs to being the most junior captain, with the loss of seniority for bidding schedules and vacation. Luckily the company has kept growing and I am now halfway up in my base as a captain, even though I am 600 out of 2000, because I work in a junior base. Everything in my life depends on achieving seniority within the company.
Having explained all that, this is what happened when they raised the retirement age from 60 to 65 in the USA. For 5 years nobody retired and because of the economy nobody got hired, so for 5 years the new hire was at the bottom of the list, and the most senior captain, instead of retiring, stayed at the top for 5 more years. Yes, the new guy will eventually get to the top of the list as well, provided he wasn't an older guy when he got hired, but he will never sit at the top for 5 years, for him the extra 5 years were spent at the bottom of the list, at the lowest pay grade, working reserve and never getting vacation on xmas or in the summer when his kids are off. The simple sum for him works out to career earning that are over a million USD less than the senior guy, plus a lot less QOL, not something you should gloss over....
I was hired when they finally started hiring after 5 years of being stuck in a going nowhere job because of the retirement age change, at age 45, (and will never get in the top 10%), so I hardly qualify as a complaining youngster.

ShotOne 16th Jul 2018 07:33

“We have been here before...” No, no, and no parabellum. “ Of course total statistics for pilots over 65 having heart attacks are low because there are so few in that age bracket . By your nonsense logic employing only 100 year-old pilots would improve safety since no pilots in that bracket have ever had a heart attack.

Trossie 16th Jul 2018 07:38

Thank you to everyone who has explained 'seniority systems/lists'.

In the UK in any job to be chosen for redundancy purely on 'last in first out' would be illegal. So these 'lists' would be of no use there.

From my understanding, many new airlines in the UK do not use such systems/lists.

From my understanding of what has been described about those systems/lists, it appears that the younger folk with kids will never get summer holiday leave as the older folk would have snapped it all up.

In that system, if Smith and Jones are both based at base ABC, Smith really doesn't want to be there and applies to move to base DEF, while Jones is quite content there. People don't leave DEF so it takes a long time for vacancies to come up, but after a long time Smith sees his opportunities of moving coming only one or two vacancies away. Then Jones suddenly decides that he would like to move to DEF and applies, because he is 'senior' on that system/list he 'trumps' Smith and gets the move. Things then stagnate and it takes another year before Smith can get his move. Is that fair?

Also, if Smith who is a highly experienced pilot joins the week after Jones who is straight out of flying school, Jones would be 'senior' to Smith. Smith 'ticks all the boxes' in every one of his checks and meets all the criteria for promotion very early in his career there. Jones is rather weak, only just making the grades but gradually improves and takes a long time to meet the criteria for promotion. Because the economy has been stagnant (or something like that) it takes a long time for promotion opportunities to come up. Smith has met all the criteria and has just been waiting for the vacancy to arise, Jones finally manages to 'get his act together' and meets the criteria as a vacancy arises. Jones is 'senior' to Smith therefore gets the promotion. As things are stagnant it takes another year for a vacancy for Smith to get promotion. Is that fair?

The only case where I have seen that any such 'seniority' system has had 'merits' is where it accidentally put the one who should have had the position (if it had been based on merit) in charge, and that was when Lt Chard took command as he was 'senior' to Lt Bromhead.

I understand that in the old sailing ship days in the Royal Navy, everything revolved around the 'Navy List' (even to which ship would have priority as her captain was higher up the List than the captain of another ship.)

However, this topic is not about such old fashioned practices. It is about a retirement age. It is illegal to discriminate in the UK based on 'old' age. Why should there be an age where someone is forced to retire?

Let us use another couple of examples:

The enforced retirement age is scrapped and on average pilots elect to continue to work for another 3 years before retiring. When this first happens, that will put back promotion opportunities for younger pilots by about 3 years (assuming that the airline is not growing). But then those younger pilots have every opportunity to recoup that 'loss' by working 3 years longer themselves, or even longer if they wish. So overall they have not lost out in any way. Then of course, once the new way of doing things is settled in, everyone will be in much the same position as now, just 'moved on a bit'.

Now let us assume that the enforced retirement age has not been scrapped and some mentally deranged idiot manages to hijack an aeroplane and crash it into a big building (or some extreme situation like that). This puts the airline industry back 4 years and promotion opportunities for the younger pilots take 4 years longer. That younger pilot, once he has his promotion, has no opportunity to recoup his losses as there is an enforced retirement age that he is going to bang his head against.

Anyone who is fit, healthy and competent (and you guys all get checked very regularly, don't you?) should be able to continue doing the job that he is capable, competent and qualified to do. And none of those greedy 'whippersnappers' should be trying to push him out of the way because they greedily want his job.

This quote sums this all up:


Originally Posted by slip and turn (Post 10197295)
...
As others have indicated, the Australians got past this nonsense years ago. Why are so many of the rest intent on remaining so Neanderthal about it?

Now let me finish by repeating a question that I asked earlier:
What evidence is there that passengers in Australia might feel less safe because their pilot might be 'old'?

flyboyike 16th Jul 2018 08:29


Originally Posted by BGQ (Post 10197637)
Isn't the point that nobody's selfishness is superior or worse than any others so why the heck are most younger pilots banging on about the older pilots being selfish?

That SHOULD be the point, but doesn't seem to be. For one thing, it's not the younger pilots running to judges "banging on" about discrimination. Older pilots who are not in cream puff positions aren't crying about it either. It's only those with really sweet gigs who won't go without kicking and screaming...

2unlimited 16th Jul 2018 08:38

Trossie
"The enforced retirement age is scrapped and on average pilots elect to continue to work for another 3 years before retiring. When this first happens, that will put back promotion opportunities for younger pilots by about 3 years (assuming that the airline is not growing). But then those younger pilots have every opportunity to recoup that 'loss' by working 3 years longer themselves, or even longer if they wish. So overall they have not lost out in any way. Then of course, once the new way of doing things is settled in, everyone will be in much the same position as now, just 'moved on a bit'."


This part is not entirely correct. There is fairly fresh example of this from SAS few years back, when the retirement age went from 60 to 65. There was nearly a civil war inside the company, as people had already been waiting 15 years or more for their upgrade.
Furthermore it stopped new recruitment for several years, as the company did suddenly not need to employ new pilots. Loads of guys on special sponsored cadet schemes and self sponsored schemes got canned, no longer required.
There was such big issues within the company that union had to get involved, how inside "bullying" against senior crew who decided to not retire for another 5 years, keeping their top salaries and pension pay, while FO's had to wait another 5 years at least for their promotion. Including the domino effect of no new recruitment for many years.

BGQ 16th Jul 2018 09:12


Originally Posted by flyboyike (Post 10197814)
That SHOULD be the point, but doesn't seem to be. For one thing, it's not the younger pilots running to judges "banging on" about discrimination. Older pilots who are not in cream puff positions aren't crying about it either. It's only those with really sweet gigs who won't go without kicking and screaming...

jeez flyboylike. You get the point and immediately revert to emotive BS that contributes nothing to the debate you agreed "should be the point".....

ManaAdaSystem 16th Jul 2018 09:34


Originally Posted by BGQ (Post 10197844)
jeez flyboylike. You get the point and immediately revert to emotive BS that contributes nothing to the debate you agreed "should be the point".....

Every single pilot I have met who was pushing for a higher age limit (65 in that case), fell into category Flyboyike described.


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