Retirement Age and Crewing Requirements
 

Apparently the ICAO ANC has approved the proposal to limit all pilots in commercial operations to pilots up to their 65th birthday. They have also approved the removal of all pairing restrictions beyond age 60. This will become effective on the 14th of November 2014 when this will become the ICAO Standard.

Thank you to all these who battled for that.

Mean experience of pilots will be increasing.

Helping young retiring Military Pilots to get airline pilots would help a Country to keepc savoir-faire and benefit of better selection, formation and experrience.

Not such good news for those who are currently operating over 65.

That is good news. Now to get the retirement age dropped completely - my generation in the UK won't get a pension until 69, so what are we meant to do for the intervening 4 years? I suspect other nationalities face a similar problem. Many of us can't afford significant private pensions, even on company schemes, to make up the difference, and contractors get no company pensions at all. I don't see why the authorities or companies should be able to impose ageist regulations when EU policies demand otherwise. Surely any pilot should have the right to continue working as long as they are fit and competent. as checked by medicals and LPCs? Let us have the choice of retiring at any age, not just prior to 65.

Now cue the whining from young FOs about selfishness of captains refusing to hand over their jobs, ironically unable to see the hypocrisy of their selfishness in craving of ultra-quick commands and how easily and quickly many of them got their first airline jobs compared to older generations...:ugh:

Alumimium Shuffler; I've been giving this one a bit of thought. It would make a very interesting case if someone actually brought it to court that the government is taking away a person's means of earning a salary whilst not entitling them to a pension. I'm sure the European Court of Human Rights would have something to say. I wish good luck to anyone who tries. I only had four employers in forty years and two of them were for twelve and twenty-four; and yes, I know how lucky I am.

Surely anyone who joined the game would have known there's going to be a gap between retiring and being eligible for a state pension, if - that is - the country they live in hands out a meaningful state pension at all.

Yes, the age for eligibility has been rising all over Europe, but so has the retirement age for pilots. 55, at one time, then 60, now 65.

Thus, one could possibly argue that anyone who failed to make plans for the gap years only has himself to blame. Perhaps the answer is NOT to continue flying until you're at an age where you are, for all intents and purposes, unemployable in another field. Perhaps time could have been used to learn a new trick or two, maybe create a small business, and drop out early while there is still a chance to have a go at something else, something without a mandatory retirement age. If the flying bug is still there, join an aeroclub and muck about in a bugsmasher or, even better, a glider.

As a non-airliner I have planned to work to 65 and get my pension at 65.

Along comes politics and all of a sudden 67 is the new pension age (Germany)

So, no, I didn´t think there would be a gap, retirement age has been 65 for a long time in Germany, actually there was a time not very long ago, when early retirement was encouraged by politicians and a lot of folks retired at 57, 58, 59 ish...

Like in so many fields, the politicians screw our life up by changing the rules and now I should blame myself? Don´t think so...

Agreed. Giving a limit for age for a job is "discrimination". We are suicidal to put all the persons on the side of economical world after some age. That is the new combat we need to start around the world. If our economy should be safe doubling the number of workers would double the wealth. But young people must help their old parents who let them grow when their health is no more good enough to sell their workNot the European Court of Human Rights but the EU Luxembourg Court.The first protects only rights included in the Human Rights Convention, and there is no protection there of what they call economical rights. The a.14 of the Human Rights Convention protects against "discrimination" but only if another article of the Convention is concerned (i.e. right to have a family, or equity in justice).
But the EU Luxembourg Court protects against such discrimination, it was that Court who gave right to pilots to fly until 65.... we did that already before getting a job as pilot !
We are flying in a garbagge world due to economical garbagge due to financial garbagge. We must stop the banksters and their beancounsters who respects only "possible" statistical air safety. I hope young people will understand that the oldest people are not their ennemis, and the young FO have to learn with empathy from the older pilots who were able to survive. (So do the elephants in nature !)

Capt's could become S/O's at 65. Don't think this rule will apply to S/O's as they aren't occupying a window seat in the critical stages of flight.

As "other" aircrew I found myself out of a job well before my retirement age so what is the difference suddenly for the two winged master race If you cannot plan for your retirement there must be some very strange reasons. In my 30 years of flying I managed to save for the retirement and I still have a few years to go yet. Find another job and live life a little.

This idea has no legs in many (most) Western countries which ban all forms of discrimination.

I was talking about this issue to a Union rep a couple of days ago and his take was that to have a compulsory retirement age less than the state pensionable age contravenes current EU age discrimination laws and was open to legal challenge. IMHO, by the time I retire the pilot retirement age will be at least 66, but along the way there will be numerous fudges and stalling tactics from employers attempting to avoid paying pilots to do nothing or little or paying them off.
WRT early retirement, I'd be only to happy to go next year at 55, unfortunately successive governments have robbed us of pension entitlement and tax efficiency's to make that possible.

The first age band in the UK to be affected by the shift in retirement rules are those born after 1953 - for them the retirement age is now 66. I was born in 1954 so I plan on retiring from aviation in 2020 in accordance with the new regulations. I've already spoken to my boss about this and he knows it's just another can of worms waiting to be opened!
He said he will give me another job - maybe a pushback driver for the last year!

I'm sure BALPA is already on the case.;)

I cant see what all the fuss is about. All my flying life I knew I would have to leave flying before the state retirement age. But then you would not want to live on the state pension anyway, and you did your utmost to make sure you had a half decent arrangements to live after retirement. For some unlucky people it did not work but for most it did. Whatever you do someone will lose out. That's life!!.

rogerg; are you sure about that? All my commercial life the retirement age ( the age at which the licence validity lapses) has been 65. Granted, lots of companies had a retirement age of 60, but that didn't prevent taking a position with one that didn't. In fact, my old company had the option for jet captains to transfer to turbo-prop captain at 60 if desired. No, it didn't clog the system, since mosts F.O.s wanted to transfer turbo RHS to jet RHS rather than turbo LHS. This new regulation would appear to create a gap where the licence is no longer valid, but the state pension is not available. I agree that the state pension isn't liveable, but some people, through no fault of their own, don't have any other option.

Herod, I do not know what your licence says but my EASA ATPL, renewed earlier this year at age 66, states 'This licence shall remain in force for the holder's lifetime unless revoked, suspended or varied. The privileges of the licence shall be exercised only if the holder has a valid medical certificate for the required privilege.'
As I renewed my class 1 medical last week I intend to continue using the licence for some time yet and am in the process of adding an additional rating.
I wonder what the reaction of current 'Corporate' pilots and the over 65s in Australia and New Zealand will be?

Fantastic - way to go OASIS06!
As it happens my EASA licence reads the same so hoping I can pull it off till 66 at least!

I'm now in my 8th year in the right seat of a regional jet and on my second airline. Rapid upgrades? This is my second month off reserve since 2009.

It might be against the law to discriminate on the basis of age but that just means companies can't officially state that applicants above a certain age need not apply. There are always means of stating why a person is not suitable for a position which has nothing to do with there age. So it doesn't matter what skills you have outside of aviation if you are older than 50 forget it you will find it difficult to change careers. Given the change of government rules regarding retirement age I would not be relying on the government for any sort of pension. Fortunately in what many consider an aviation backwater (Australia), a somewhat enlightened government in the 80's made it compulsory for employers to pay into a superannuation fund currently at 9% of salary. Not a perfect system as various governments since then have changed the tax rulings regarding super, but they realized a long way back that the government could not afford to keep supplying indexed pensions to a rapidly ageing population and a shrinking workforce.

That statement is precisely why you don't rely on the government to provide for you in old age.

The link
 

Page 13;
http://www.icao.int/safety/Documents...port_FINAL.pdf

Yes but that's according to an icao flight safety report. EASA licence regulations contradict the statement on page 13.
EASA ATPLs read: "this licence shall remain in force for the holder's lifetime unless revoked, suspended or varied".
There is certainly no mention of any such restrictions applying to my licence.
If the licence isn't valid for life then I think the onus is on EASA to clear up this rather important ambiguity!

I guess the simple way would be to state that Class 1 medicals would not be issued beyond age 65, which would allow the licence to remain valid for eg PPL etc.

The fact that the ICAO regulations may change does not effect the rights of individual operators to continue with the " combined 120 rule". This is not age discrimination etc etc, if an operator wants to let you fly a desk or just sit on the jump seat it's entirely up to them. Many companies have fixed term contracts, when the contract is up, thats it, game over. Personally, I have no desire whatsoever to fly until 65! I hope I will have earned enough to retire and enjoy life. I suspect the class one and other OMLs will do a fair bit of " natural culling"

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that, although the licence remains valid, it is not valid for scheduled passenger use beyond 65. I know of at least one person flying a jet as he approaches 70, but it is a private aeroplane. So, if you are flying a corporate jet, OK, but the majority of pilots are flying for the airlines. Don't say that pilots should have a private pension in place. Many had company schemes that went down the tube with the airline (think Robert Maxwell/BA helicopters), and the government guarantee has only been in place for a few years.

There are a number of people who could probably afford to retire but enjoy the flying and not necessarily because it is well paid! There seems to be sympathy for people who need the money. But why should people who are comfortably off, because they have been lucky with their working/private lives and happen to like the job, be considered selfish for wanting to continue flying for a living?

lederhosen
 

Because the "guilty"party is someone else. I'm sure selfish would not be the descriptive adjective if the tables were turned. :rolleyes:

I am not sure I understand you Desert185. You seem to be in agreement with the statement that people who like flying should be considered selfish if they want to continue as long as they can. You then say that the guilty party is someone else. Are the authorities the guilty party (as you put it)? Or is someone else to blame and of what? Life is not always fair and I can accept that people envy or even resent others they perceive as getting a better crack of the whip.

Life expectancy and people's potential useful working life has increased. The skills required by an airline pilot have also changed. Not everything has got better. But flying a modern jet is definitely easier than flying used to be on earlier generations of aircraft. Conversely pilots have had to become more efficient, with longer working hours for less pay. There are also many more of us than there used to be with quite different life experiences from earlier generations. I am pretty sure I will not continue to 65. But I certainly do not think that those who do are selfish.

In the UK there are a good many pilots still working beyond the age of 60; sure, it is their legal right to do so and this number will surely increase as T's & C's are eroded over time. However, the majority in the current group who have elected to soldier on between 60 and 65 have spent the vast proportion of their time in the business under the clear assumption that they would have to retire from flying at 60 or in the case of BA and some others at 55. Those on 'golden' terms are exercising their rights but are nonetheless hindering progress from below.

This scenario will change over time as in the majority of airlines, the doors to the first class carriage are well and truly shut. Those pilots across the age spectrum who are not in the front part of the train will need to continue a little longer as they anxiously keep an eye on their money purchase pensions but at least we all know what the upper age limit is until those wise politicians in Europe change their minds yet again.

Of course, 65 is only a limit and is not compulsory contrary to popular opinion !

Oh Grand!,
 

At least I will be among the most experienced FOs ever, before I get to fly as CDR on medium jets. I thank the older pilots who worked hard to raise the retirement age so that I could accumulate more hours before upgrading. Now, if only they would work towards making 70 the retirement age I would be even more experienced.

Talk about a screw job!!:eek::eek:

Lederhosen
 

Maybe I didn't state my opinion properly. I agree with you. When those younger folks become our age and perhaps decide to continue flying for whatever reason, they will not consider themselves selfish.

I don't know, Desert, the words "you'll pry that left seat only from my cold, dead hands", which I've now heard numerous times from the guys to whom I lovingly refer as "fossils" sound pretty selfish to me. I could, of course, be wrong.

I understand. Why should leaving your profession be hinged on an arbitrary age while one still has the ability to perform? Why should only the older ones be labeled as being selfish?

It wasn't that long ago that gray hair was respected. Now it seems the young crowd talks slow to the older crowd. Well, if they enunciated properly we would have understood them the first time. :ok: Whatever...I told this one young lady that she didn't have to talk slower, as I was picking up what she was laying down. I got a nice smile as a result. Don't remember if she had tats and a nose ring, but I'm sure something was pierced.

Enjoying my senior discounts, while still flying heavies, but not in an airline environment. Given that, I couldn't possibly be selfish. :D

They shouldn't be. I totally accept and acknowledge that my wanting to see some sort of career progression after almost a decade of at best stagnation, but mostly backward movement is selfish. I just don't understand why the older crowd refuses to acknowledge their selfishness as well or why in the rare cases when they do, somehow their selfishness is better than mine.

As for "still having the ability to perform", that's a whole separate conversation, isn't it?

I think there's a little mis-comparison going on here. Those who worked for companies with early retirement ages, such as 55 at BA and 60 at VA, tended to have rather generous final salary pensions or had private pensions that matured in the heydays before the financial collapse (my father gets every month what I can look forward to annually, such is the decline in private pension performance). As for those who say that the shortfall was known before the career was chosen, that is only true for those who took it up within the last couple of years - 65 has been a retirement age and pension qualifier for several decades now.

I totally agree with Alumium shuffler, the goalposts have shifted so significantly that we can all expect to be much working longer. Sadly, gone are the days of gold plated pensions in the UK!

AS

Couple of points, personal pensions can be taken from 55 I believe whilst state pensions are being hoisted up to ages greater than 65 - worth a check.

To Ramrise & flyboyike I would say, if you don't like the rate of career progression where you currently are, instead of blaming the "dinosaurs", get off your @ss & take your evidently honed skills to where they will be better appreciated (I.E a company in some other country experiencing rapid expansion ) in other words put your money where your mouth is & demonstrate the "flexibility" many of us have HAD to show for decades.

You also seem to miss the fact that Command is not a foretold perogative & some of those who shout the loudest have been (in my experience ) amongst those who (despite "extensive" experience) have mystifyingly failed to make the cut when required to "walk the walk" as well as they "talk the talk".
Old age appears to start quite early for some folk , & those achieving Command at an advanced age don't always hack it. . . .is that a good reason to turf the "oldies " out ? Er, I somehow don't think so.

You may resent the crusty old bar-steward sitting next to you on top dollar for a few more years than you would like, but, in a different era to the one you have experienced, he has most likely earned it. Excuse us if we turn our hearing aids down a tad to muffle your whines.

:D:ok:

I like it! Although, there are those who deserve the above and those who don't.

I like it, too! Captplaystation openly displays the "I got mine, :mad: you!" mentality, and makes no apologies for it. I can respect that. It's when fossils start breaking into sob stories on how that have to "make up for what they've lost" (while acquiring Corvette #7 and ex-wife #6) that I feel like I'm being played.