News reporting FAA raises age to 65

[Andy]

I find this funny, since this was the major slam on SWA for years. "But you guys have no pension"....etc... Out wit da old in wit da new!!!

I agree. I didn't avoid SWA because of no pension; it was the fact that there's no international long haul flying at SWA.

 

[BoilerUP]

It seems to me that you younger guys are opposing age 65 for the same selfish reasons as the older guys are supporting it: me, my career, my advancement, my pocketbook. So which one do you want to be? The pot, or the kettle. It doesn't really matter. They're both black.

I've made no bones about the fact this is a purely financial matter for me. Its the pro-change crowd that keeps whining about "love of the job" or how its "unfair" for them to be forced into retirement when they are perfectly healthy. Very few pro-change supporters on this board have outright said "I want the money", which is what we all know the reason for this change is.

Yeah, like its not unfair for people who had a career worth of seniority advancement because of the Age 60 rule to fight to get it changed so that they can benefit...to the detriment of everybody behind them.

 

[Lear70]

OK... everyone needs to back off the Starbucks this morning and pick up some Sanka.

CTFO. Jeez.

What you fail to acknowledge is that more airlines have gone out of business than are currently operating. Every airline hits a bad streak; if you've got 20+ years at a single airline, you're going to experience financial turbulence at your airline. Some of those bad streaks end up causing airlines to go chap 7. If a pilot thinks that the company that he gets hired at will be the same in 20 years, then he's a fool. Anyone who counted on an airline pension pre-911 was a fool. Period.

That's not *ENTIRELY* accurate.

A FEW airlines hit bad streaks (ATA plus 9/11 plus fuel prices), TWA, etc.

But MOST of the airline bankruptcies that have occurred in the last 2 decades were because of corporate greed and gross mismanagement.

It is LUDICROUS for an airline to make over a quarter of a BILLION dollars in PROFIT (not revenue, PROFIT) one year, then lose less than $100 Million a year three years in a row and need to enter bankruptcy. All with a relatively stable non-fuel CASM and high load factors.

So be careful where you point that finger - most of the guys hired in the 80's had watched 30 years of retirements before them and had no reason to think the first round of bankruptcies were just a bad one-time adjustment.

Indeed, after that first big round in the 80's, thing settled down for almost another DECADE with retirements still ongoing, so where were the BIG warning signs?

Yes, a few well-informed financialists-turned-pilot saw the writing on the wall, but I certainly don't think MOST pilots have a grasp on money issues like we THINK we do.

They expected those pensions, and you have no right to dispariage them for believing in a promise made by a business that had NEVER defaulted on pensions in the history of aviation unless the company just ceased operations altogether (liquidated) and there were only a couple of those.

NOW: what would HELP all this, is to charge the cost of those pensions lost back to the airline who dumped them.

You want government action to help fund retirements and not impact your own? Here you go:

PBGC tax. You heard me; a TAX on EVERY airline that dumped their pension plan. $5 per person, per segment, no sales tax or airport taxes allowed on that amount; it goes STRAIGHT to each airline's retirement pension accounts.

That amounts to $10 to $20 per passenger. Not enough to hurt business, but certainly enough to add up.

HOW MANY passengers flew on UAir last year? UAL? DAL? Now multiply passengers by $20 (most connect through a hub).

Starting to see my drift here?

Yeah, I wrote just about every congressman I could think of, along with ALPA National and asked them if including this change in law to make the airlines who took advantage of the 1113 process have to pay some back and not hold revenue and profit hostage for those monies (no way to hide it).

This in conjunction with no age limit increase would help make the problem less about $$$ and more about what's fair or equivalent with ICAO pilots coming into this country.

Never heard a word back. From anyone.

Maybe it's a ludicrous proposition. It certainly would damage their ability to have the lowest fare in a market segment, but not by more than $5 or $10 which a good schedule should MORE than off-set.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

 

[Tejas-Jet]

Protest loud and long! (Till we get enough of those geezers out of the cockpit for me to get recalled! ) TC

You can protest loud...but how long depends on the time frame they put on the NPRM. After that...all protests are invalid.

Now, remember, in your public comments, Washington already knows that this is political...so health/safety talk, especially from a pilot, is pretty much gonna be tossed. They know the score there. Remember that the FAA medical staff has already said that this is not a health issue.

So, you need to word your comments more towards your superior aviation skills and how this will help/hurt your chances of making it to the left seat.

And don't forget the age 60+ pilots that are already flying in U.S. airspace...somehow, you've got to get the FAA to get them outta here.

That will make your arguement more valid.

Tejas

 

[Lear70]

Lear70, your dad's a friggin' idiot. And when he loses everything in another high risk 'investment' at 64 1/2, I guess that we should raise the age limit again, eh?
He deserves to live in a van down by the river.

You're more than welcome to PM me your contact information and we can figure out a time to "get together" and "discuss" that.

I didn't go on the personal attack against you, I simply stated a case where sometimes you make a decision and it bites you.

It's easy to cast stones from behind the cover of anonymity. Do it to my face and you'll regret it.

People need to remember that just because this is an "anonymous" forum doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want with absolutely no price.

Careful...

 

[SkiFishFly]

Most of the big airline pensions were considered as secure as Gov pensions. It was for this reason that a lot of guys in the 90s did not save much for retirement purposes. Very few felt the need to tie up money in a retirement account. Most professional advisors probably told them the same thing.

2000 rolls around and the airlines are starting to hurt a little. 9-11 happens and bam the airlines are really in trouble. Big losses, bankruptcy and then they kill the defined benefit pensions (all while management keeps theirs).

I have a hard time faulting a guy who wants a chance to try to salvage something after Management and the bankruptcy courts shafted him.

This issue really points out how divided us pilots can be. How about some sense of shared sacrifice for the guys that got shafted like this post 9-11? Maybe management has no scruples but do we have to become as cold-hearted and self-centered as them?

OBTW - I would bet that a lot of the guys who still have a retirement are going to go ahead and retire. We should work TOGETHER to make sure that the company DOES NOT penalize anyone for choosing to retire at 60. I know I intend to step aside at 60 - maybe earlier if I can swing it financially. Life is not all about work and there is plenty of other flying to do...

 

[TV9Driver]

I don't fault the guys wanting to salvage what management has taken away. However, to say that I haven't sacraficed is completely false. I've been furloughed for 5 years so far at a loss of about $250K in salary (what i have made minus what I was making). I'm still only making 1/2 the salary I was 5 years ago! Now we raise the age limit and i'm looking at another 5 years of furlough.

I think i'm sharing in the sacrifice enough.

 

[aussiefly]

I don't fault the guys wanting to salvage what management has taken away. However, to say that I haven't sacraficed is completely false. I've been furloughed for 5 years so far at a loss of about $250K in salary (what i have made minus what I was making). I'm still only making 1/2 the salary I was 5 years ago! Now we raise the age limit and i'm looking at another 5 years of furlough.

I think i'm sharing in the sacrifice enough.

Damn Straight and now they expect us to burden their loss as well as ours.

It's time to burn ALPA down and start again.

 

[BobbyB]

It seems to me that you younger guys are opposing age 65 for the same selfish reasons as the older guys are supporting it: me, my career, my advancement, my pocketbook. So which one do you want to be? The pot, or the kettle. It doesn't really matter. They're both black.

The difference is that there is no COST to the old guys. They upgraded whenever they did, and will get a bonus 5 years of pay, benefits, and growth on retirement money. The young guys have a direct cost in pay for not having the opportunity to upgrade plus the growth of whatever retirement/profit share/seniority based access to premium time contributions one might have over a long period of time. The result is that the young guys will be "forced" to work past age 60 just to be where they would have been had the rule not changed. We all don't get the same benefit from working an extra 5 years at the end.

 

[IAHERJ]

My very informal polling of the captains I fly with seems to be about 50/50 as far as retiring or staying if the rules change. Our guys have their lump sums albeit a smaller chunk than before the A-fund was frozen so about half seem to think that they are better off taking the money and leaving. The other half are either bored at home or feel that the extra few years of B-fund(12.75%) will benefit them. Who knows.