Age Discrimination at Emirates

[ADFS]

Ah, so now besides being refered to as an old fart, now I am an asshole ? And I am the arrogant one ?

[TnAviator88]

Originally Posted by ADFS

Hello all,

I have recieved a rejection letter from Emirates, the reason being my age. I am fully active and current, typed on the 330, with over 13K total hours, 6k captain, full of spunk and life and willing to contribute to their success as a productive First Officer....never mind my age, 54.

Yet I am refused even the option; they have never seen me, they don´t know that I am in better shape now than when in my 30´s and that I hold many thousands of hours, incident-free, in airline operation world-wide.

Great, so now because of my age I can sit back and watch my life fall apart, all the struggles and studies for nothing, lose my house, who the hell cares, theres a zillion young game boys and girls to be exploited....

I´m angry....anybody else ??

I'm pretty aggravated, they just gave me a notice that I can't apply to their flight academy because I have to be 27 or younger. I'm only 35, wth?

[Mr Good Cat]

Originally Posted by TnAviator88

I'm pretty aggravated, they just gave me a notice that I can't apply to their flight academy because I have to be 27 or younger. I'm only 35, wth?

Statistically, there’s probably more flight training failures with those who have been out of full time education for a while i.e. 30s and above. While this may not be a challenge for yourself they’re probably just applying a blanket rule. I’m sure there are better places to learn to fly anyway, so I wouldn’t worry about it.

[allert]

Originally Posted by TnAviator88

I'm pretty aggravated, they just gave me a notice that I can't apply to their flight academy because I have to be 27 or younger. I'm only 35, wth?

A GCAA frozen ATPL outside the UAE is useless anyway. Spend your money elsewhere

[Count of Monte Bisto]

I just came across this thread by accident. I’m a 64-year-old training captain with easyJet who is about to retire. The whole age versus experience thing is a very difficult issue. Although it might not be stated as a policy, I’m pretty certain we would not look at a 54-year-old copilot with or without an A320 rating. We have quite a number of 27 to 32-year-old captains could have come up through the cadet system. We have in the past had some older first officers, but it’s not always been as stunning success. That is obviously a sweeping generalisation and there are clearly exceptions. In terms of accusations of ageism, I believe we have in the past taken captains who are over 60 years old. We would always be concerned about why someone has not made captain by age 54. That said, there are clearly a lot of very rational explanations as to why that may be the case.

What Emirates or other airlines do is up to them. What I can say is that no one wants to take unnecessary chances in pilot selection. It would be clearly outrageous to suggested every first officer in their 50s is somehow deficient in their capability. However, it would also be true to say that there is a significantly increased training risk. Therefore, the harsh reality is that for many major airlines the door has closed at that stage. It is for others to decide if that is an acceptable policy or not.

[Gordomac]

Count ; AFDS posted 15 years ago. I too just noticed this thread but not by accident, it just caught my eye as I lurk about on a Sunday morning trying to put off pruning the Palm tree.

I won

der if, in 2009, when he was rejected,Emirates actually stated an age limit. Many didn;t. He would have every right to be miffed if there was no stated limit but he found out later that such a limit clearly existed and he thus wasted his time even applying.

I was similarly rejected by Emirates. There was no stated age limit but the rejection letter then stated that since I exceeded the age limit (not quoted), i could not be considered. I too was hurt, cross, rejected, miffed and took it up with Emirates. Got nowhere.

As many others advised AFDS, l trust he let it go and concentrated on other outlets where there was no stated age limit and maybe, even got in somewhere really nice like SIA DEC.

Goes the other way too. Recent selection criteria for the BA Speedbird "Acadamy" fully funded pilot training programme, i think, is limited to max age on entry, wait ;..............................55........................... !

Lots of skin in the selection game and even helped write the criteria. But we were very clear in the "stated" conditions.

I think palm tree pruning should be limited to 35 years of age and fully fit. Ok, risking it before sun-downers at the Lithos.

[olster]

I was also rejected by EK because of age for DEC. They rejected me within an hour but then phoned me at home to offer an SFI interview which I accepted and passed, subsequently working in that capacity for them. I had no issue being rejected due age, they were completely up front on that issue. Older pilot’s unfortunately have health issues as they grow older and self evidently the youth versus experience equation balances downwards based on insurance and medical advice. Another fact: Emirates works the pilots to the limit and robust health is required to deal with the work plus circadian issues. EK is not an airline for the faint hearted: boasting about your experience and brilliance goes down like a sh1t sandwich. A little humility goes a long way. I would like to play cente forward for Tottenham but I suspect approaching 70 I am too old….

[Uplinker]

Count of Monte Bisto........We would always be concerned about why someone has not made captain by age 54. That said, there are clearly a lot of very rational explanations as to why that may be the case.

Thank you for that explanation, now I understand .

I am in a similar 'boat' to the OP, and I have been beating myself up for years about this.

I am always professional, and stayed competant and good at my job by working hard. But I started flying at 35, after deciding on a career change. I left the first airline after 5 years because my family life was suffering from the long distance commuting I had to do. The next airline was fine for many years but went bust around the time I would have been changing seats.

An application to an A330 operator was going well until they saw my passport and DoB........

I took a temporary freighter job - many thanks Tom - and then had to move house for the next airline, but that went bust a year later after the parent company had been in business for 178 years ! The next airline was the main UK legacy carrier and I had passed day 1 of the assessment, when the Covid lockdown came in, literally overnight. So that was that.

I have since tried to get other flying jobs and train driver jobs and signaller jobs but all to no avail. Now at least I know why - it's simply age discrimination, not a lack of competance or ability or experience. FWIW, friends and family are always very surprised about this pilot age discrimination.

This is a great shame, since I for one am not the typical fat older person. I keep fit and do a 10km run every week. I am wiry, have a low BMI, do daily exercises, and have a Class 1 medical. I am not your typical slow, unhealthy, unfit old fat guy who has let theselves go with a beer gut and bad knees.

We had to sell our house and downsize when my last employer went bust, and I could not pay the mortgage or get another flying job.

What really annoyed me was after being rejected, I decided to volunteer for the life boats. I have been around small boats on the sea all my life, am thin and fit and swim like a fish etc, etc. and thought I could as least do something useful, but guess what - they said I was too old !! And that was without even seeing me. A one legged person a year younger than I was would be useless in a life boat but since I was over the arbittrary age limit, they would not consider me.

I won't get my pension until 67 - years away yet - but these companies won't employ older people, so what do we do ?
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