U.S. President Bush on Dec. 13 signed a bill to raise the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots to 65, allowing senior pilots to fly an additional five years. The U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved the measure earlier in the week.
The Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act lets pilots fly until they reach 65, provided they pass medical tests taken twice a year. It also mandates that air carriers perform additional proficiency checks on pilots over 60, such as line checks every six months. The pilots must also continue to take training and qualification programs.
Pilot groups who lobbied for the change estimate that 150-210 pilots a month are forced to retire when they reach their 60th birthday. “Each day that passes without raising the retirement age to 65, approximately five our senior, most experienced pilots will be forced to retire,” said House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D- MN).
Although grounded commercial transport pilots have fought over the past decade to regain access to the flight deck, it was not until after the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) last year allowed pilots to fly until they reach 65 that momentum built quickly to change the rule in the United States. Following ICAO’s lead, international flights would require at least one pilot under age 60.
The retirement age provision was originally included in a Federal Aviation Administration spending bill, but it was pulled out when the money measure got bogged down on Capitol Hill.
After decades supporting a rule requiring commercial airline pilots to retire by their 60th birthday, the FAA earlier this year signaled that it now supports raising the retirement age to 65, matching the new ICAO standard.
“It’s time to close the book on age 60,” former FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said in a Jan. 30, 2007 speech. “The retirement age for pilots needs to be raised. A pilot’s experience counts. It’s an added margin of safety. Foreign airlines have demonstrated that experienced pilots in good health can fly beyond age 60 without compromising safety.”
On September 27, 2006, Blakey established a group of airline, labor and medical experts to recommend whether the United States should adopt the new ICAO standard and determine what actions would be necessary if the FAA were to change its rule.
The Age 60 Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) did not reach a consensus recommendation but did provide detailed insight and analysis that will be helpful as the FAA develops a rule.
Since 1959, the FAA has required that all U.S. pilots stop flying commercial airplanes at age 60.
But Blakey stepped down from her post to head the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) with no rule change in place, and the FAA said a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is required before any final action is taken.
The issue has deeply divided pilots and their unions. It pits younger pilots eager to gain seniority and older pilots who feel fit to fly and need the money.
The Air Line Pilots Association’s (ALPA) long-held position on age 60 was that “the rule is a well-established safety regulation…The justification for the rule is not now and never has been to enhance the careers of pilots who want to move up the seniority list faster. (The age 60 rule) should not be changed for the sake of those who want to continue to fly longer.”
But in May of this year ALPA set a new course on the age 60 debate, voting by an overwhelming 80 percent margin to end the union’s longstanding support of the age 60 mandatory retirement age for airline pilots.
In the face of concerted efforts to change the rule in Congress and the FAA, the ALPA Executive Board directed that union resources be committed to protecting pilot interests by exerting ALPA’s influence in any rule change.
ALPA President Capt. John Prater said “ALPA pilots will be fully engaged in shaping any rule change since any legislative or regulatory change needs to address ALPA’s priorities.”
ALPA supports legislative language that prevents retroactive application of a change to the age 60 rule. The pilots union opposes any additional age-related diagnostic medical testing and any attempt by the FAA to obtain greater access to pilot medical records. ALPA supports a recommendation to require a 1st Class Medical certification every six months for pilots over age 60.
In response to the FAA Administrator’s announcement, Prater established the ALPA Age 60 Blue Ribbon Panel “to study the long-range effects of potential changes to the FAA Age 60 Rule and to identify issues connected to possible changes to pilot mandatory retirement age.”
The Panel presented its findings in the areas of aviation safety; collective bargaining; the cost and structure of heath care, disability, and retirement benefits; pilot training; medical standards; and scheduling rules to the Executive Council at its April 2007 meeting.
The Council recommended to the Executive Board that ALPA modify its policy to enable ALPA to influence legislation and regulatory efforts.
But support for the measure is not universal among pilots, even within ALPA, where the union’s Northwest Branch told Oberstar in a May letter that they “strongly oppose” changing the current age standard. “The Age 60 rule has been in place for 50 years, and has served safety and the public interest well,” the letter said.
The Allied Pilots Association, which represents 12,000 pilots of American Airlines, had commissioned an outside polling firm to survey U.S. adults on the issue of pilot retirement age.
“Results so far indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans have serious safety concerns about any increase in the retirement age and favor further study. Similarly, our pilots support age 60 retirement by a seven-to-one margin for safety reasons. We should heed their professional judgment. After all, pilots are in the best position to ascertain the effects of aging on their own stamina and skills and on those of their fellow pilots,” APA believes.
APA said the FAA should be permitted to proceed with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a full vetting of this issue.
“The United States has long set the worldwide standard for aviation safety and should preserve its leadership role. The reality is no one knows what would happen with large numbers of 65-year-old pilots in the cockpits of modern commercial airliners operating in today’s demanding environment. The data doesn’t exist because it would be unprecedented. Prudence therefore dictates that we proceed with caution. For safety’s sake, it’s the right thing to do,” APA added.
The Senior Pilots Coalition (SPC), which was set up to push for an age 60 rule change, believes raising the retirement age by five years could help ease the current U.S. airline pilot shortage while putting hundreds of experienced pilots back into the cockpit.
SPC President Lewis J. Tetlow, a Vietnam War vet and US Airways captain who was forced into retirement when he turned 60 on April 2, 2007, said: “The FAA needs to get out of the age discrimination business and into the business of making sure there are enough pilots out there to keep our airways safe and airlines flying on schedule.
“Today, we have an artificial pilot shortage in America that could be remedied quickly by putting available pilots back on the job. It is clearly in the public’s best interest to get these experienced pilots flying again,” Tetlow added.