I have been with PPrune from the beginning - the join date on the left is incorrect, due to a glitch in passwording. I am immensely saddened that the quality of dialogue here has deteriorated so much in recent years. Instead of reasoned arguments and polite disagreement, we seem to have flat statements, followed by flat contradictions, followed by personal abuse. No one has all the right answers so why not try to understand the other side of the argument? I know Wayne and I'm a couple of years older than him and I wouldn't return to an airliner flight deck for all the gold in the Indies. Granted, I have a comfortable retirement but it didn't happen by accident and I had my share of unemployed periods. I do believe that the 'safe to fly at 64 years and 364 days but not tomorrow' needs to be addressed, rather than being kicked into the long grass as 'too difficult' by the regulators. We have the world's most regulated industry so, surely, some flexibility is possible.

If I'm forced to retire at 65 by State decree, why should my State Pension be witheld until the age of 66?

I would think that the bureaucrat response to that would be that you are forced to retire from that one job nobody is preventing you taking up other employment :hmm:

so you think a guy can be fired for being 65 and then find a totally different job the very next day without several months of interviews HR hoops etc?

Why wait the last day to look for another job.
Is not like you do not know is going to happen.

If either of you know of any employer who will hold open a job for a 65 year old until the day after I'm forced out of this one by the government, I'm prepared to give it a go.

Oh man, oh man:rolleyes:

Is it really that difficult? Not a bit of flexible mind and initiative? Do you need written SOP to work out a solution?

Bristolscout & Hunterboy, excellent posts and thanks for trying to bring us back on thread. Notice how quickly others, missing the point completely , attempt to throw us of course again ! Captain Bailey probably has no wish to continue after age 65. He certainly has no need. His case is, quite simply, to remove the arbitrary age barrier. It might benefit others rather than himself. Offer him a 737 or DC3 freighter until, again, some arbitrary cut-off age would be of no interest to him but he might well object to the arbitrary cut-off.

I can well immagine how, after shutting down his dreamliner following his swansong, Wayne might have asked why it had to be the last. If Crew Control called him up very next day and asked him to come in & do another Barbados, what on earth would stop him other than the fact that he was now, 65 & one hour ! Nonsense.

In the good ole days, BA pilots had to retire at 55. Why ? Lots went on with other carriers until the further, arbitrary age cut off of 60. But they had to leave BA at 55. Daft. The really lucky lot on BA 747 went at age 55 and joined SQ, at LHR Base until they reached 60. Simple swap of uniforms and aircraft livery. Many must have enjoyed a wry smile as they carried on doing the same job, same base , with something else painted on the side. And before I am leaped upon by those missing the point, yes, I can see a desirable project to retire people in order to make way for the up and coming otherwise the waiting line might become intolerable . I was in BA. Time to Command was running at 15-20 years. But, the aim was a BA Command & with people having to go at 55, a circulation existed. At age 22, I would be 42 at first Command and have to go 13 years later. Seemed ok. And, here comes the point again fellasAt age...........55..................I could swop uniforms, liveries and carry on with someone else until the daft cut off of 60. (Now, 65). The BA retirement age was not arbitrary but a personnel control feature. Wayne is simply asking why is it a REGULATORY requirement to quit at age 65 ?

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.

Was told a very long time ago that the 55 retirement age in BA was entirely due to the pension scheme, pilots could not join the scheme until they were 25 years old and could only contribute for a maximum of 30 years, does that sound correct?

parabellum: Not so. Hamble graduates could join as young as 20 years. The Part 5 Pension gave a 1/56 credit for each year of service (ie. 28 years service gave a 50% of final salary pension which could be taken at 50 years of age) Staying employed after 50 till 55 allowed a "crystallisation" of the pension which gave a further substantial increase in the pension.

Sadly, such generosity is a thing long since gone!

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.

wow! 'crystallisation' - I haven't heard that spoken about for a few years. I think we have all seen the good days in this industry and they will not be back again.