Age 60 informal poll

[Skyrunner]

With the continuous decline of this business, I doubt I'll make it to the point of ever being happy this rule is gone. 65 will be changed again, or foriegn control will come, or whatever. I know it doesn't matter to you long term, just as long as you get something now.

I'm not going to worry about you too much. Your probably going out with more than most airline pilots will have in the future. And your going to get Social Security. Your generation will be pulling the ladder up on that one too. Oh well, you've earned. Thanks.

It's just the grown-up version of "Hungry, Hungry, Hippos". There are only so many marbles out there. Get yours before it's gotten!!!!!!

 

[coltsfn8888]

let em fly till they croak

 

[Flex newby]

[SIZE=+4]See Ya' Down The Road[/SIZE]
Why retire young? Below is a very interesting study comparing age at retirement vs. age at death. The average person who works until age 65 dies 18 months after retiring while the person retiring at age 50 lives to be 86 years old. For those contemplating working another few years before retiring, realize you are losing two years of your life for each year you work beyond age 55.
I have received information that Dr. Sing Lin used old data for his research so the facts below are not entirely correct. Due to interest in his research I will leave this page on my website for several more months.
[SIZE=+2]Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity[/SIZE]
By Sing Lin, Ph.D.
Member of National Council of Chinese Institute of Engineers – USA/Greater New York Chapter, and Member of Board of Director of National Taiwan University Alumni Association – Greater New York (March 2002)

1. Most Creative Years in the Life
The Nobel Laureate, Dr. Leo Esaki, delivered the distinguished lecture entitled "Innovation and Evolution: Reflections on a Life in Research" in the University of Texas at Dallas in the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2002 during the 2002 US National Engineering Week. In this lecture, Dr. Esaki indicated that most of the great discoveries and innovations by the Nobel Laureates occurred at the average age of 32 even though the Nobel prizes were awarded 10 or 20 years afterwards. Furthermore, Dr. Esaki indicated that the peak creativity of most scientists occurred around the age range of 20 to 30 years. As one gets older, the experience increases but the creativity decreases steadily with the age.
It is, therefore, very important to stimulate, encourage and cultivate many young people to get interested in science and engineering at their young age and to provide the optimal R&D environment for these very powerful young scientists and engineers to unleash their very strong creativities during their most precious and creative years around the age of 32.
2. Longevity Vs. Retirement Age
The pension funds in many large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, etc.) have been “Over Funded” because many “late retirees” who keep-on working into their old age and retire late after the age of 65 tend to die within two years after their retirements. In other words, many of these late retirees do not live long enough to collect all their fair shares of pension money such that they leave a lot of extra-unused money in the pension funds resulting in the over-funded pension funds.
Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng provided the important results in the following Table 1 from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent to retirees of Boeing Aerospace.
Table 1 – Actuarial Study of life span vs. age at retirement
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Age at[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Retirement[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Average Age[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]At Death[/FONT]49.986.051.285.352.584.653.883.955.183.256.482.557.281.458.380.059.278.560.176.861.074.562.171.863.169.364.167.965.266.8
Table 1 indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span is only 66.8. An important conclusion from this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.
The Boeing experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 18 months, on average, prior to death. Similarly, the Lockheed experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 17 months, on average, prior to death. Dr. David T. Chai indicated that the Bell Labs experience is similar to those of Boeing and Lockheed based on the casual observation from the Newsletters of Bell Lab retirees. A retiree from Ford Motor told Dr. Paul Tien-Lin Ho that the experience from Ford Motor is also similar to those in Boeing and Lockheed.
The statistics shown in the Pre-Retirement Seminar in Telcordia (Bellcore) indicates that the average age that Telcordia (Bellcore) employees start retirement is 57. Therefore, people who retire at the age of 65 or older are minority as compared to the number of early retirees.
The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and-mind such that they are so stressed out to develop various serious health problems that forced them to quit and retire. With such long-term stress-induced serious health problems, they die within two years after they quit and retire.
On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either wealthier or more able to plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably.
These early retirees are not really idling after their early retirements to get old. They still continue doing some work. But they do the work on the part-time basis at a more leisure pace so that they do not get too stressed out. Furthermore, they have the luxury to pick and chose the types of part-time work of real interest to them so that they can enjoy and love doing that “fun” work at a more leisure pace.
The late retirees are small in number, tend to die quickly after retirement and disappear from the population of old people beyond the age of 70. Late retirees, therefore, have very little weight on the statistical average life expectancy of the population of “old people” dominated by the early retirees.
Several years ago, a Japanese friend of mine told me that most Japanese people retire at the age of 60 or earlier. This may be one of the factors contributing to the long average life span of Japanese people.
3. Changing Trend of US Pension Plans
The traditional pension plans of many major US companies used to place a lot of value on the experience of long-term older employees by increasing the pension money rapidly and nonlinearly for long-term employees as their age + service year increases beyond the threshold of the rule of 75. Most long-term employees cross this critical threshold at about the age of 55. On the other hand, the early retirees incur very heavy penalty in pension and in other associated retiree benefits (e.g., employer paid medical insurance, employer paid life insurance, death benefits for family, etc.) when they retire before they meet the rule of 75.
However, in recent few years, many large US corporations are switching from their traditional retirement pension plans to the new portable Cash Balance Plans. The new portable cash balance plans are much more favorable to the younger employees but are very unfavorable to the long-term older employees. Some older long-term employees found that when their employers switched from the traditional pension plans to the cash balance plan, their pensions were reduced by 30% to 50%.
One of the implications of this trend towards the new cash balance plan is that the US corporations are now placing more value on the higher creativity and adaptability of younger employees and less value on the experience of the older employees. This is consistent with the accelerating pace of innovations and technology advances. The creative and dynamic younger employees are better positioned, than the older employees do, to keep up with the faster pace of technology advances.
4. Conclusion and Recommendations
The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32. Plan your career path to use this precious 10-year period wisely and effectively to produce your greatest achievements in your life.
The pace of innovations and technology advances is getting faster and faster and is forcing everybody to compete fiercely at the Internet speed on the information super-highways. The highly productive and highly efficient workplace in USA is a pressure-cooker and a high-speed battleground for highly creative and dynamic young people to compete and to flourish.
However, when you get older, you should plan your career path and financial matter so that you can retire comfortably at the age of 55 or earlier to enjoy your long, happy and leisure retirement life into your golden age of 80s and beyond. In retirement, you can still enjoy some fun work of great interest to you and of great values to the society and the community, but at a part-time leisure pace on your own term. On the other hand, if you are not able to get out of the pressure-cooker or the high-speed battleground at the age of 55 and “have” to keep on working very hard until the age of 65 or older before your retirement, then you probably will die within 18 months of retirement. By working very hard in the pressure cooker for 10 more years beyond the age of 55, you give up at least 20 years of your life span on average.

This entire essay was proven to be nothing but Horse s-i-. I had the rebuttal from the Boeing engineers union on my othe computer.....I'll look for it. Trust me - It's not true.

 

[VAjetlag]

No it is not broke.

 

[Penguin46]

Nay way

 

[GoABX]

APA reaffirms support for age 60 rule

Judy Tarver
7/18/2006​

​

The Allied Pilots Association (APA), representing the 13,000 pilots of American Airlines, reaffirmed its support for maintaining a mandatory retirement at age 60 for the nation's commercial pilots.

Congress is considering legislation that would raise the age, and pilots on both sides of the issue are making their respective cases in person this week on Capitol Hill.

"Since the Federal Aviation Administration's establishment of age 60 pilot retirement in 1959, not one single airline accident has been attributed to the effects of aging--either sudden or subtle--on a pilot's health and skills," said Capt. Ralph Hunter, APA president. "It's hard to imagine why Congress would even consider experimenting with such a successful policy, particularly given the implications for public safety."
Hunter noted that age discrimination and economic considerations are the justifications most often cited by those supporting an increase in the retirement age.
While APA and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA)--the latter representing some 61,000 pilots at 39 airlines in the U.S. and Canada--support maintaining retirement age at 60, the Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association (SWAPA) has been pressing for change. Hunter said that Southwest has hired some 1,000 pilots since last surveying its pilots on the issue, so SWAPA's position could shift if its members were to be surveyed again. However, Southwest Airlines, unlike American, does not have a defined benefit pension plan so pilots there may be more concerned about long-term income security. Not only does Southwest's pilot union supported a change in the age 60 rule, but the carrier itself has previously supported changing the rule.

SOURCE:
http://www.fltops.com/fltopstoday.asp

 

[b757driver]

To Be Or Not To Be

It ain't just SWA that supports raising the age but an increasing number of international airlines, some of whom will be flying into the US.....

Here's another:

Thu Jul 13, 2006
JA raises age limit for pilots to 65

Jamaica has joined several other states in meeting the International Civil Aviation Organization recommendation that the age limit for the holders of Airline Transport pilots licenses be extended from 60 to 65. Transport Minister Robert Pickersgill says Jamaica decided to join the line as pilots have been maintaining an excellent state of health.

He notes that the new local civil aviation regulations already contain the age limit provisions for aircraft of a certain weight category.

Chairman of the Caribbean Airline Pilots Association, George DeCabral, believes that most countries will be following suit shortly.

However he notes that this is not a directive.

They were speaking at the 13th annual Airline Pilots Association Conference which is underway at the Wyndham hotel in Montego Bay, St. James.
http://www.rjr94fm.com/news/story.php?category=2&story=26266
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]__________________________________________________________________[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pilots group welcomes new retirement age [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]published: Friday | July 14, 2006[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE CARIBBEAN Airline Pilots' Association (CALPA) has welcomed the United Kingdom-based International Civil Aviation Authority's (ICAA) recent approval of a new retirement age for airline pilots.
Captain George de Cabral, chairman of the association, says the extension of the retirement age from 60 to 65 years, which takes effect on November 23 this year, has been widely supported by pilots and their respective countries across the region. However, while the retirement age has been adjusted, it remains an option for countries to implement.
COUNTRIES CAN REGULATE
"Although they have implemented this new age limit, individual countries can still regulate their own age limit. They (the ICAA) can't necessarily force a country to go to 65 years," Captain de Cabral said. "ICAA members across the Caribbean have signed on to this (so) I do not foresee a problem with it when the time comes." Captain de Cabral was speaking at the association's 13th Annual General Meeting at the Rose Hall Resort and Country Club in Montego Bay, St. James yesterday.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060714/news/news5.html
[/FONT]

 

[T206driver]

This rule is boldface age discrimination. Yea to dumping this horrid regulation.

 

[Klako]

There is no credible information available that supports the notion that airline pilots over age 60 pose more of a safety risk than younger pilots. There are, however, numerous credible reports supporting a ban on the FAA’s arbitrary age 60 mandatory retirement law. Safety is the smokescreen that ALPA and APA uses to institutionalized age discrimination through their accelerated job advancement scheme for its junior pilots.

In July 1979 Captain J. J. O’Donnell, then president of ALPA, testifies before the House Public Works and Transportation Committee: Congressman Anderson: “I gather from your testimony before the Select Committee on Aging that some of your members do not want to see the Age 60 Rule ended. Do those who oppose ending the age 60 rule do so on the grounds of safety or economics?” Captain O’Donnell; “ I would be misleading [to say that] they do it on the basis of safety. ... t is economics to those who object to the change in the regulation.”


ALPA President Henry Duffy’s made this statement in the 1990 Baker v FAA “It has never been my belief that professional expertise diminishes at age 60: on the contrary, our senior members possess a wealth of knowledge, aviation history, and insight that have been developed through their years of experience, which are irreplaceable”. He also stated during this testimony “Pilots over 55 comprise 5-6% of the total membership. The other 95% selfishly view the forced retirement of older pilots as their guaranteed path and a God given right to their promotions!”


It is a disgusting situation when a labor union such as ALPA and APA could dictate to the rest of the United States airline industry when all airline pilots must retire.

Senior pilots have had their right to work flagrantly violated. What legitimate labor union would actively support such a rule that discriminates against its own members and forces them to leave their workplaces. When the State deprives a person of their liberty to work in a profession that they are qualified, this violates that person’s equal protection guarantied by our Constitution. Ageism and age discrimination simply must not be institutionalized by a federal law such as we now have in the FAA’ s current “Age 60 Rule”.

There is growing support within the pilot unions to change the “Age 60 Rule". The following unions and pilot employee groups have gone on record that they support a change the Age 60 Rule:

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PILOTS ASSOCIATION (Independent)
JET BLUE (Independent)
AMERICAN TRANS AIR/ATA (ALPA Master Executive Council)
AMERICA WEST MEC (ALPA Master Executive Council)
SPIRIT (ALPA Master Executive Council)
CONTINENTAL (ALPA Local Executive Councils of Houston and Newark)
US AIRWAYS (ALPA Local Executive Council of Philadelphia)
IBT TEAMSTERS (Airline Division)
There are only two organized labor unions that now oppose a change to the “Age 60 Rule”, ALPA and APA. Even though ALPA's official position is that they are still against it, there are growing sentiments within the rank and file of ALPA for changing the "Age 60 Rule”. ALPA and APA have been milking the “Age 60 Rule” for all it’s worth for much too long a time and it is high time that the Congress puts ALPA and APA back on the right track.

All Airline pilots need a rule that poses the least harm to all across the board. There are just too many pilots now who at one time worked for Braniff, Pan Am, Eastern Frontier, or other carriers gone bankrupt,merged or otherwise forced to seek employment elsewhere, starting on probation wages.... again. Many pilots have four or five different uniforms in their closet, gaining seniority only in age, and need to work beyond age 60 to enjoy a decent retirement. Only the largest majors have the big pensions, and therefore are against any change, however, with the demise of the younger hiring age, many of their newer pilots are realizing the possibility of inadequate pensions at age 60. Most, if not all, smaller or newer carriers do not have a fixed benefit retirement. For those pilots, retiring at age 60 could be their worst nightmare. Realization of this fact may come for the non-forward thinking as they get nearer to the guillotine of the “Age 60 Rule”.

All Airline pilots need to have a rule that best assures their future not one that merely placates their situation early in their careers. It is high time for the United States to follow the lead of forward thinking nations around the world who have broken through the age 60 barrier. The “Age 60 Rule” should be repealed. A repeal is long overdue, and this time - more than ever before - the FAA knows it, most pilots know it, passengers know it, and our senators and congressmen - whose offices acknowledge that the majority of the calls and letters and faxes they receive favor repeal (despite ALPA's best and costliest efforts) - know it.

Shame on those pilots who continue in “lock step” with ALPA and APA as they have been dealing bad faith to their own senior union members? Now is the time for the Congress to stand on the side of reasonableness and fairness and force a change to the “Age 60 Rule”.

Today Americans are become increasingly aware that unless one is independently wealthy, the only viable retirement plan one can count on is 401K savings and planning to work past age 60. No one should count on Social Security or a defined benefit plan, as those are becoming less reliable to retirees. The rising tide of retiring baby boomers could likely cause runaway inflation when there are fewer and fewer producers and more consuming without producing. The only clear solution is to encourage people to work longer. People today live longer and are healthier that 40 years ago. Forced early retirement is just plain wrong. Airline pilots, like other workers “should be judged on ability, skill, and proficiency, not on arbitrary age limits”.

 

[JohnDoe]

There is no credible information available that supports the notion that airline pilots over age 60 pose more of a safety risk than younger pilots.

If that is true, then why does the proposed rule change dictate that someone 60 or under must accompany the over-60 pilot?? Obviously, somebody, somewhere, believes it could be an issue. If it wasn't, there would be no need for the requirement.

And before somebody says "it's just to match the EU rule," well......why do they feel the need to have it??