Please vote NO on S.65!

[Flopgut]

Flopgut,
Most of my friends feel as though they have been fired for turning 60. This has nothing to do with money. It is Age Discrimination. It is about time that the U.S. look at this the same as they look at all other discrimination. This is a Civil Rights thing as much as a money thing.....Unless you are in Airline Mgmt. Just as C.R. Smith was. This was a Union busting trick in the Fifties, and it is still wrong.

Most of my furloughed friends feel like the world has completely foresaken them. Look, discrimination IS bad. But it is not "about time the US look at this" at all. This is an all-time low for this business. There are a legion of furloughed pilots out there. This is the time to keep the rule and get some folks back into this business. This business needs renewal, people with different philiosophies, different leadership standards. We aren't going to get it by keeping the same pilots around who are currently running things and interacting with management, operations, and training. The role of "aged leader" has eclipsed them, they have not done a good job, they need to go. (I am of course talking about the legacy airlines. LCCs, frieght, fractionals, and others are doing great. Due in no small part to the fact that they posses the "renewal" espirit de corp I'm talking about)

Separately, the money issue is this: It is not about what you make, it is about what you spend. Five more years of earnings won't allow for as much recovery as you think. (especially with pay cuts) You watch, when/if this rule change comes to pass there will be a run on new cars, trucks, boats and houses in the micro-economies where pilots live. Additionally, I wonder how many ex-spouses are going to want another crack at these newly minted retirement dollars? Think of the huge transfer of wealth this will create from furloughed pilots to scorned exes and their lawyers? Wonderful, thanks a lot guys!

You are telling us that your abilities are not diminished, perhaps even better. You had the best earnings in the history of this business. That suggests to me that if you can't find something else to do with a bit of your money and and all of your talents then you're simply a wreck (figuratively speaking). A fat, ignorant burden looking for a place to be a blight on. All of our worst fears about what your added years will bring to bare in the cockpit may have been adequately dispelled. But the effect of keeping you in place with the artificially bolstered halo of "super seniority" will be an immense detriment to the legacy carriers going forward.

 

[Draginass]

If the FAA makes the medical more stringent, you're going to see Loss of License insurance probably triple, and probably not be available at age over 60. Another "unintended" consequence.

 

[Spooky 1]

If the FAA makes the medical more stringent, you're going to see Loss of License insurance probably triple, and probably not be available at age over 60. Another "unintended" consequence.

I doubt it.

 

[BLUE BAYOU]

About YOUR upgrade. Not mine. Mine will take longer, evidently. It will be both more significant and harder earned.

It's like a cat chasing it's tail BOBBLEHEADS. Even if your upgrade is delayed guys, you're also going to be given the opportunity to work an extra 5 years too!!! You have to be 67 now to get full SS benefits, a 5 year gap was doable but 7 years is a stretch man...

 

[b757driver]

My circumstances were the worst possible scenario. And so from that experience I look at this with a certain degree of disgust. My family pulled ourselves together after an airline shut down unexpectedly. Turning age 60 should not surprise anyone. Knowing that in this business many things, including your retirement plans, are quite provisional one should be better prepared. Additionally, with a lot of hard work we were able to do pretty well after the big change. If any of you truly had the amazing faculties, wisdom, and talents that you cite as credence for flying past 60, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I have known a lot of change and I am prepared. Do you suppose you could muster the least amount of grace or professionalism? Or do you prefer to rub it in?

I am not rubbing it in - just questioning your reasoning and why you insist that everybody should be the same. People's circumstances change all the time. Some have the Midas touch, others do not.
You are not the only pilot to have gone through change. For the record I have been through 7 CARRIERS in my career so far and I had to start over each time! Only one of those carriers still survive today. So, I think I know a little bit about change.....and preparedness.
This issue is not about that however. It's about personal choice for individuals with different desires.
I am truly sorry you have had personal grief in this industry....but you are not the only one. There are many more out there who have had it 2 or 3 times worse and still survive the upheavals. I am one of those and happen to believe that the age 60 rule needs to go thereby giving the individual the choice to do what he/she wants to do. Stay or leave, your choice, not some legislator who has his/her fat retirement and job deciding what I should or should not do. This industry is hard enough without making it harder.

 

[Flopgut]

I am not rubbing it in - just questioning your reasoning and why you insist that everybody should be the same. People's circumstances change all the time. Some have the Midas touch, others do not.
You are not the only pilot to have gone through change. For the record I have been through 7 CARRIERS in my career so far and I had to start over each time! Only one of those carriers still survive today. So, I think I know a little bit about change.....and preparedness.
This issue is not about that however. It's about personal choice for individuals with different desires.
I am truly sorry you have had personal grief in this industry....but you are not the only one. There are many more out there who have had it 2 or 3 times worse and still survive the upheavals. I am one of those and happen to believe that the age 60 rule needs to go thereby giving the individual the choice to do what he/she wants to do. Stay or leave, your choice, not some legislator who has his/her fat retirement and job deciding what I should or should not do. This industry is hard enough without making it harder.

There has been plenty of adversity to go around for all of us. Why create more for those furloughed right now

 

[Full of LUV]

Wow, that is a stretch

It's like a cat chasing it's tail BOBBLEHEADS. Even if your upgrade is delayed guys, you're also going to be given the opportunity to work an extra 5 years too!!! You have to be 67 now to get full SS benefits, a 5 year gap was doable but 7 years is a stretch man...

You know, that is a stretch, that's why in the old days pilots bargained for a thing called a "Pension"! Also, why doesn't SWAPA just lobby to start getting Medicare and SS benefits at age 60 for SWAPA pilots and leave the rest of the industry alone?

 

[N1kawotg]

Good luck changing SS and medicare in this political environment- that would solve everything but washington can't think outside that box. As far as SWA and SWAPA- most want these guys to stay. They are some of the most productive within the co. Also, these guys getting ready to retire brought SWA to where it is now. Their the ones when they only had 10 planes and had to fight to stay alive.

 

[Andy Neill]

Ignorance is not an excuse. Educate yourself, before you open your suck!

At the risk of sounding ignorant and uneducated, does anyone have the text of the bill as ammended in committee? In other words, when the Senate takes it under consideration for a vote, what will it say?

 

[Andy]

So if a pilot can be PIC if he is over 60 until he is 65, provided that the FO is under 60. Is the guy under 60 going to get some 'compensation' for his new job requirement? Maybe the 64 year old will want to share some of his cash, since without the FO being under 60 airplane no fly. Or better yet maybe we could alternate legs, and salaries of course.

A better solution would be to allow pilots to fly past age 60, but never as pilot in command. That'll solve the 'someone under age 60 in the cockpit' problem.