Fly Till Ya Die
 

Age 67 is here -

Pilots' retirement age to be raised to 67 to cope with shortage ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

I hope that EASA does the same - UK nationals currently of about 40 and lower won't get state pensions until they're 69, and with so many airlines giving appalling pensions, if any, then retirement becomes a worry for many.

As long as service at an airline beyond the current contracted retirement is voluntary, not mandatory, then this is a good thing - mandatory licence nullification at 65 is pure ageism and illegal in the EU, though it has yet to be challenged. If someone can pass the medicals and sim checks, then there is no safety issue, which is what the 65 mandate is based on. Time to give fit old folk the choice.

Actually, the license won't be nullified and you can of course work beyond 65 even in europe. Just not in commercial air transport.

But yes, there is a problem with the age 65 rule and state pension ages going upwards. Over here in germany the state pension age is 67, however if you become unemployed at 65 you will get your state pension, just with a 7,2% discount on the normal rate, despite having payed the maximum contribution for life.

If you read the link, it's actually nothing to do with "giving choices" -to "fit old folk"or anyone else. It's purely about increasing the supply of pilots so that remuneration, including pensions, can be cut further.

As for the idea that this is somehow "fighting ageism", how is a limit of 67 any less ageist??

Fly Till Ya Die
 

Spot on ShotOne.

65 was set in the UK as retirement age in 1913 - when the average person would live another two years

Seems reasonable to move it up to reflect the changed life expectancy

Several very valid reasons I can think of, not limited to ex-wives/airlines going bust & "losing" your pension contributions/bust pension funds/ Oh, and maybe, just maybe, because you still enjoy flying. :rolleyes:

Interesting nobody has mentioned the lack of a retirement limit for domestic operations in Australia. Whilst many of us will probably never see the day, I have a friend who still flies in his nineties (with a safety pilot). He had a twin IR into his eighties, when he was happily using his company Seneca to get around his business. He is now retired but still amazingly active.

Just another example, in an endless series (regarding anything Regulatory), of how sacrosanct principles get sacrificed as soon as someone with the appropriate authority gets convinced that there is an "Over-riding Business Case" to justify abandoning them.
Life is :mad:, & to pretend otherwise is pointless !

I retired at 65. Speaking purely from a personal point of view, I would have liked to have flown for another two years. That would have been just right for me.

Those that think an increase in the working life of a pilot will result in an overall increase in the pension they eventually retire with, is being naive in the extreme.
Airline bosses will immediately readjust the company pension contributions downward to offset any potential increase for the employees.
In other words, we will all be working longer into older age, and we will be that little bit less capable of enjoying our eventual retirement (in terms of vitality).
Not to mention being a few years closer to the grave anyway.

Hamsters on the wheel springs to mind.

Not when you're retired it isn't!!

Herod

Been there - am there!

Just reflecting on the cr*p that flies around these days when standards that are no longer convenient to uphold are abandoned.

originally you started work at 14 or 15 and worked until 65 - say 50 years

now at worst you start work at 18 and pension at 67 less time and the work isn't as hard as it was way back

TBH I feel sorry for people who fixate on taking their pension - is the day job THAT bad???

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn´t. Its definitely not a healthy one.

Life expectancy and health, let alone getting/maintaining a medical are different animals. These days you can be drugged to age 95 and still be sick between 45 and 95....
I´m turning 50 in 1,5 years - my eyesight was way better when I was 40. My doctor tells me, this is normal and the deteorating will continue, with plateaus and "sharp cliffs".... he also does "medicals" for bus drivers and he says EVERYONE knows that 99% of all bus drivers cannot meet the requirements at 62,62,64 ish. Yet they need to work til 67. As we will have to (and btw, why is there no cover for the 2 years gap between 65 and 67 that we already have ?).
And who will hire a 63 old busdriver or ex pilot ? Despite all the fanfares, the bosses just want young and cheap labourers.

Another case of the nice politicians just twisting and changing the rules without remorse. Just for them, the pensions never get cut. I wonder why....

And oh, btw, I started at 17. The same beancounter that makes my life miserable starts to study at20, 21 and gets out of University at 27-28. which makes me work 10 years longer than them. IS THIS FAIR ?

So if they want me to fly to 67, fine, but then change the medicals. Oh, and the cockpit door width, if I need a wheel chair to go to work, it needs to fit through there....

Shot One, you misunderstand me. I believe that there should be no mandate on when we have to stop - if we can pass the medical and performance checks, we should be able to continue as long as we choose. The Japanese are not doing this out of decency to the pilots but out of commercial pressure. The motive is wrong, but the result is a step in the right direction.

Great that the Aussies can see the absurdity of a mandated limit that fails to account for different individual fitness and circumstances. Now just the rest of the ICAO members to follow suit...

I hung up the headset at 64.9 yrs old and would have loved to go on for another coupla years, as I was apparently physically fit, mentally I could b**ls**t my way through onto the flightdeck and get airborne before the F/O realised what (s)he'd let themselves in for!


Alas the FTLs in a certain country at the end of the St Pancras Eurostar railway line appear to have been drafted on a fag packet during a very tired and emotional evening by the company boss and the relevant xAA.


As a result I found myself getting TIRED of the whole business, though I loved the flying and the team with whom I worked.


Others of my vintage have given up, NOT due to the strains of the job but the hassle of getting TO the aircraft through the company briefing room, security, crew transport and the inevitable delays because last season's beancounters have culled significant numbers of the support ground staff.


So it's not just a matter of passing the medical, our leaders and managers have succeeded in making it a much less attractive job than 42 years ago when I first frightened myself in a RAF Chippie.

A number of over 70, Airline pilots (one turning 75 this year) still flying A320 on domestic operations in New Zealand as there is no age discrimination. International operations are limited to 65 due to ICAO standards in other countries.

This is tremendous news. There are some grumpy old trainers and managers that I relish the oportunity to hear pontificating for another couple of years. There are those (not I) who feel they "need the money" - after a significant period in the industry before terms and conditions began their race to the bottom. Sounds like bad planning. Spare an unselfish thought for the less fortunate behind you without nice DB pensions who actually do need the money from a higher paying heavy jet job or senior position.

Still enjoy flying? Why yes I do. What that has to do with operating a modern FBW airliner in the paranoid security and EASA circus I'm not too sure.

Oh, and aren't the bunch now whining about "ageism" (get a life), the same lot whom through action or omission have "led" this profession down it's current path?

The good guys will be replaced by other good guys, there's no shortage on the line. The :mad: seem to cling on forever.

Au revoir, auf widersehen, adiós, до свидания, 再見.

Case One, do you care to elaborate on how I have led the profession down ths path? By taking the best terms and conditions available to me? Is investing in y childrens' education and the UK government suddenly deciding to up the pension age by four years poor planning on my part? Why do you support an illegal, discriminative policy? Oh- because you want everyone pushed out of your way so you can progress. It's all about you, isn't it?

Damn baby boomers. Most selfish generation in existence.:}

Twas was a joke

I would loved to have staying flying, provided that there were;

1. no slot problems,

2. no airport security,

3. no badly behaved passengers,

4. a few crew my age for company down route,

5. no 12 hour night flights and only one trans Atlantic flight a month

6. no management half my age reinventing a wheel every few years

7. CRM that might assume that the problem was not always me, and that
F/O or the cabin crew manager may be wrong

8. Trainers that 'trained' rather than set out to find out how little I knew.

9. and I could go on and on ............

STAIRCASE.


Well said!


Good news: The inmates are running the asylum.


Bad news : They've got the keys to the pharmacy!

Well I didn't say you personally old chap. Perhaps you may not have sold your skills to the lo-co's or done the expat thing in search of a quick command/ TRI/ fleet manager position etc. - thereby facillitating the operators who are slowly destroying this profession. Or did you? I call those who do, greedy, selfish, shortsighted and a couple of other things that the mods wouldn't like. It was certainly all about them. Nudged your union, local MP etc. to do anything about the way current entrants to this industry are now being treated, or EASA nonsense, or was it none of your business?

On the other hand you seem to have placed reliance on an HMG pension. Now that was just foolish.

I don't think the policy is illegal - yet. Perhaps I'm wrong. Discrimination? Stop whining, much bigger problems in the world than relatively rich pilots not having quite as much money as they'd like. Save the D word for those suffering real injustice.

I've progressed just fine, thanks for your concern, there's no-one in my way. However, I'd be very happy to see many of those mis-managing things at the top shuffle off to retirement - doesn't mean I want their jobs. All about me? Nice try. I'm not sat here cr@ping on those behind/ below me.

Again, it's nothing personal old chap, I don't know your specific circumstances and attitude, I'm making general points. You may be a good egg. Too many aren't/ weren't.

There are many pilots out there who would much rather have worked for the decent airlines and play the long game, but guess what - we don't get paid for wishes or morals. Everyone has to take the best job they can find, and that depends an awful lot on location and luck. Sitting unemployed for years in the hope of a BA job isn't going to achieve much, is it? There are also some who prioritise their kids over themselves. You call that bad planning, some may consider it duty or decency. I, and some others, are willing to work harder and longer to give our kids the best start in life, but you seem to want us to suffer more by being homeless at 65. Why is that?

The simple thing is that blanket insults, criticising everyone that may have a reason to need to work longer as being selfish and foolish is in itself selfish and foolish. Don't criticise what you don't understand. I'd love to retire at 55, but those wishes won't pay a mortgage or put food on a table.

We should all have the choice of retiring at the contracted pension age or when no longer physically able to work. What is wrong with wanting us to have control over our lives?

When I started my career I though I'd be retiring at 55. When I was 40 I knew I'd have to go on to 60. When I approached 60 the raising of the retirement age to 65 was a welcome financial bonus which would fill the holes which had appeared in my financial plans. As I approach 65 it is coming together financially but I will work on as SFI/SFE for as long as I have the energy and enthusiasm in order to fund the expensive hobbies and tastes I have acquired (and my boomerang offspring). Flying CAT beyond 65? I don't know. I certainly don't feel like it right now. Having had a brush with one of life's big 3 diseases I feel I've had a tap on the shoulder from the almighty to remind me of my mortality. Perhaps it's time to do something else while I'm still fit and active. On the other hand........

Therein lies the rub!
 

Indeed, why would you become homeless at 65?

Is it possible that liberty to choose one's retirement age anywhere between 45 and 85 is way outside the scope of things we are "Free to choose", fervently promulgated by the saint Milton Friedman?

The problem has come about because of the government moving the goal posts over time, not under the control of the individual.

Those who think any expereienced pilot is going to willingly give up his salary, so someone younger can have it instead, is probably a product of an education system where they were led to believe that a comfortable life was just for them, an entitlement.

But, life is an ongoing competition, with constantly changing rules. We all have to, as my late father would have said: "Like it - or lump it".

P.S. Case One: You're very stroppy for an 8 year old, aren't you? Work hard and get your GCSEs, there's a good lad... :E

There are so many factors - which airlines are recruiting or shedding, what renumeration is on offer from those recruiting, whether one can take a medium term hit on pay by taking an FO position at a legacy carrier instead of being trapped in a command position at a loco (easier for singles in their 20s than parents in their 30s-50s), the education quality where you are (and costs of private education where state is lacking), the returns on private pensions, shares and other investments freefalling, governments moving goalposts on state pension ages and amounts, changing tax rules, companies going bust or restructuring and wiping out their pension funds...

The point is that those who can afford to retire early should be allowed to do so, while those that want or need to continue working should be able to.

Who said anything about expecting anyone to willingly give up his salary? That's just one reason I'm happy to see a mandatory retirement age. Another is that it removes an avenue for companies to further erode terms and conditions - compelling everyone to work longer.

Thanks for your sage advice about competition, life's suddenly become clear to me.

As for the waffle about education systems, it looks like you need to take some of your own advice. Buy a book, learn about logical form and produce a cogent argument, now there's a good boy. :E

But yes I am a bit stroppy. I'm a little tired of hearing people trying to justify their own self interest by trying to dress it in libertarian clothes and whining about discrimination.

There, there now. That wasn't specifically aimed at you, which is why I wrote your name afterwards. It's not all about you, after all. :E

That's what you seem to be doing!