Get ready for Age 67+

[Fubijaakr]

I agree with you on several points:

It won't be a grassroots effort this time around. And it will be a much more effective plan of attack.

Especially since it makes economic sense for the bean counters to do it. If the corporate overlords get on board, especially considering they're in full control of the Supreme Court, it will be a done deal.

And don't mistake the public as caring how young or old their pilot is. They don't care. All they care about is cheap tickets and airlne management can deliver cheaper tickets if they don't have a large annual pilot training bill.

I would argue that the public prefers older, experienced pilots, especially in the left seat. Everyone's heard, "Man, am I glad to see some gray hair up there." Its usually after they've connected from "Teen Air" Regional.

Read my lips. No hull losses. It's not a safety issue until there's a hull loss.

EXACTLY. And considering the last hull loss was with a young Captain at the controls, the "safety" issue is non-existant. The last two pilot flight deck deaths were pilots well younger than 60.

There goes the "safety" argument.

If the retirement age doesn't increase, this will probably result in some routes getting less frequency with upguaged aircraft ... an upguage from two RJs to a single 737 or A319. An upguage is cheaper than using RJs but frequency is also a big player for high yield frequent flyers.

The upgauge issue will be driven by economics, though I believe it will be more direct costs than training costs, but you might be right. The cost of flying 50 seat RJs is already prohibitive and the 70 seaters are quickly becoming too costly as well.

The frequent flyers might just have to take a hit on this one. Look at Japan...how many years have they flown widebodies in domestic service? Why? Primarily airspace restrictions and slots. Same thing is happening here, especially at the large hub airports. An RJ uses the same slot a 777 does. At some point it will be so congested the RJ will have to give way.

The good news, more mainline jobs.

 

[wanagethi]

Baby boomers or the entitlement generation, need to go, lower the age to 55!!!

 

[Sacha]

Age 60 was artificially low. Age 65 made it a little less artificial. Age 67? Probably in 10 years or so (but then it will be pushed by the Flopguts, etc. of the world that railed about the injustice of changing the age to begin with)

I think you'll see more pilots willing to give up pay to protect their health insurance in the coming years, unless the airlines just dump everyone into ObamaCare. Then any medical issues arising become everyone's/no one's problem and the airline's could care less about retirement age. This will parallel the push by airlines for pilots to pay for their own recurrent and upgrade training.

But, SURPRISE, the pie won't get any bigger moneywise.

Why don't you go lick your cat's butt! If any of that crap happens I will be long gone...

Bringupthebird,

I think you are dead on unfortunately.

Flopgut,

One can only hope you are long gone way before it happens. Your fellow employees thank you.

 

[Andy]

Age 60 was artificially low. Age 65 made it a little less artificial. Age 67? Probably in 10 years or so (but then it will be pushed by the Flopguts, etc. of the world that railed about the injustice of changing the age to begin with).

How come you didn't direct that comment at me? You and I have clashed on this topic many a time.
Is it because, due to the age 65 change, I've been furloughed for the last 2 1/2 years?

 

[Andy]

I agree with you on several points:

Excellent. This is a contentious topic. Let's see if we can keep it somewhat civil, even on FI, for a few days. I know, I know, I might as well try parting the Red Sea...

Especially since it makes economic sense for the bean counters to do it. If the corporate overlords get on board, especially considering they're in full control of the Supreme Court, it will be a done deal.

For carriers with a diverse fleeet, you're probably looking at ~8 pilot months in training (students, instructors, LCAs). That's only the labor cost; there are facility and logistics costs associated with training events. If three of four students are from other domiciles, each retirement generates three months' hotel and per diem bills. It's not an inexpensive proposition to have a widebody captain retire.

The Supreme Court is a bit too much conspiracy theorist stuff for my taste. Nor is the Supreme Court pertinent to the discussion.

I would argue that the public prefers older, experienced pilots, especially in the left seat. Everyone's heard, "Man, am I glad to see some gray hair up there." Its usually after they've connected from "Teen Air" Regional..

1) Are there any 'teen air' regionals left?
2) Gray hair works for a while but there is a point at which it will raise some concern. 70? 75? Every individual is different.

EXACTLY. And considering the last hull loss was with a young Captain at the controls, the "safety" issue is non-existant. The last two pilot flight deck deaths were pilots well younger than 60.

There goes the "safety" argument..

Let's not open that can of worms. Whenever I discussed this issue prior to 2009, I was always told that 'you can't prove age was a factor'. And I could pull up the graphs of accidents per 100,000 flight hours based on age. There's a definite upturn in the graph.

The upgauge issue will be driven by economics, though I believe it will be more direct costs than training costs, but you might be right. The cost of flying 50 seat RJs is already prohibitive and the 70 seaters are quickly becoming too costly as well.

The frequent flyers might just have to take a hit on this one. Look at Japan...how many years have they flown widebodies in domestic service? Why? Primarily airspace restrictions and slots. Same thing is happening here, especially at the large hub airports. An RJ uses the same slot a 777 does. At some point it will be so congested the RJ will have to give way.

The good news, more mainline jobs.

The economic models are MUCH more complicated than pure CASM. Otherwise, we would see very few RJs.
Frequency is hugely important to business travelers - I speak from experience as a former 1K on that one.
Let's just look at one city pair - DEN to OMA on 28 Sep. There are 6 daily flights; 4 RJs, 1 A319 and 1 A320. I remember going through Independence Air's quarterly reports and their CASM on the A319 was ~6cents while their 50 seat RJ was ~25cents. I'm sure that those numbers are tighter for UAL but I'm not going to try to dig them up because UAL contractually pays for fuel and that never gets factored into UAL's RJ CASM.
United could cut DEN-OMA service down to 4 A319/320s per day and reduce costs. But then those flights would need to synch up with the banks of flying done daily. I'm sure you'll find that the current 6 flights (756A, 954A, 128P, 349P, 744P, 951P) all line up with DEN's departure banks. Which of those departure banks will not have a DEN-OMA flight? And what happens to the passenger that can go to Southwest or Frontier instead of waiting 5 hours for the next flight to OMA?

 

[Flopgut]

Bringupthebird,

I think you are dead on unfortunately.

Flopgut,

One can only hope you are long gone way before it happens. Your fellow employees thank you.

Oh yeah, He's certainly "dead on" if old guys keep calling the shots.

Watch as I beat a dead horse. Bringupthebird is a pragmatic. He's long on problems and has no answers. Gust Avrakotos described his type in Charlie Wilson's War: "He's a tool, he's a cake-eater, he's a clown, he's a bad station chief, and I don't like to cast aspertions on a guy but he's going to get us all killed". He's already decided health care is a target and that there is no more money available. He likes to believe that because it makes him more comfortable with the only real plan he has which is stick a knife in someone's back. He's a typical old guy type and an ALPA bootlicker. The problem is that there is a better way. You have to check out www.rrb.gov. Rail workers don't have this because they work for the railroad. In fact not all railroad workers get access to the RRB. They have this because they work under the RLA. RRB benefits have been recently strengthened and in fact ten years ago they lowered full retirement age. Any question one might have about health care, disability, survivor benefits, retirement income etc, etc is in there. There is no way airline workers should suffer another day under the RLA and not be included in RRB. But, the message falls on deaf, old ears. ALPA leaders realize RRB solves about half the problems that make up the need for the union. And, as it's always been, it's too easy to backstab. The baby boomers like easy...

 

[CesnaCaptn]

...unless the airlines just dump everyone into ObamaCare.

Pardon my ignorance, but can you explain how someone is dumped into ObamaCare?

 

[Bringupthebird]

No, old guys retire and young guys become old guys and adapt to the conditions as they exist, or else they don't retire (from an airline job at least).

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected.

Go back to watching movies with your suspiciously nervous cat.

 

[Bringupthebird]

Pardon my ignorance, but can you explain how someone is dumped into ObamaCare?

Give yourself about 3 or 4 years and you'll understand it completely!

 

[Bringupthebird]

How come you didn't direct that comment at me? You and I have clashed on this topic many a time.
Is it because, due to the age 65 change, I've been furloughed for the last 2 1/2 years?

Parking all the 737s and furloughing 900 pilots probably has little to do with Age 65.

 

[filejw]

Here ya go boys...
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/422783-age-70-international-pilots.html

 

[Andy]

Parking all the 737s and furloughing 900 pilots probably has little to do with Age 65.

OK, I see that the whole training pipeline discussion was too complex for you.

 

[Metro752]

Let me stop you right there. That sh** isn't coming anytime soon and neither are the new rest rules.

I'd say you're correct on that; no changes to minimum requirements and no change to rest rules. Besides, I doubt that the regionals are having a hard time finding fully qualified pilots right now. Another year from now will be a different story.

Both of you are out of touch with what is going on.

The ATP/1500 rule is federal law, and would have to be amended to change.

Rest rules, who knows.

The regionals are having a hell of a time filling classes.

 

[flyboyike]

I was flying with one of our oldest the other day. He can't hear. I mean he really can't hear anything. He's got these hearing aids that are about a 50/50 at best. So we get to the gate and we see the captain who brought it in and he's another one our oldest pilots. For some reason he's lost his voice. He can't talk; He's just moving his mouth and gesturing trying to be apologetic as he attempts to describe what he just wrote up. His mouth is moving, but there is no noise coming out. So the hearing aid captain starts screwing with his ears trying to adjust the hearing aids. Nothing. The other FO and myself made eye contact and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing. We bolted. We were both sick of making up for these guys. The gate area was full of customers and the FAs were there. But the FAs left them as well. I think it took about ten minutes until they finally decided to write messages to each other on the paperwork. What's crazy is nobody can intervene on this kind of thing. They are both check airman. They have friends in the FAA and they make it clear they will retaliate if you have anything to critique them on. it's really screwed up...

Hilarious.

 

[flyboyike]

I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but the US is an ICAO member

Which ostensibly means that the US can't be less restrictive than ICAO. We can be more restrictive than ICAO (e g have a lower age limit) all we want.