April 2, 2001

MEMORANDUM

TO: Richard E. Green
Legislative Reference
Office of Management and Budget

FROM: Sylvia Anderson
Assistant Director for Legislative Affairs

SUBJECT: LRM ID JAB19, S.361, to Establish Age Limitations for Airmen

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has reviewed S. 361 "To establish age limitations for airmen," as amended and approved by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on March 15, 2001. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently prohibits airlines from employing persons age 60 and over as passenger airline pilots. As introduced, S. 361 would have raised that age limit to age 65. On March 9, 2001, the EEOC submitted comments on FAA testimony relating to that version of the bill. The comments are attached for your convenience and are equally applicable to the amended bill.

As amended, S. 361 would raise the limit to age 63, rather than age 65 and it would give the FAA authority to (1) "require such a pilot to undergo additional or more stringent medical, cognitive, or proficiency testing in order to retain certification" and (2) "establish crew paring standards for crews with such a pilot." The EEOC has consistently opposed rules that place additional requirement or limit an individual's ability to operate aircraft due solely to his/her age. As noted in our earlier comments, the Commission does not believe that a chronological age limit is an appropriate proxy for the qualifications of any pilot. Rather, the necessary skills and health qualifications can and should be assessed accurately on an individual basis. Accordingly, rather than subjecting pilots over age 60 to additional testing, the Commission would recommend that all pilots undergo the level of testing necessary to safely pilot commercial aircraft.

Indeed, in 1993, the FAA sought comments on whether it should raise the age limitation for commercial airline pilots from age 60 to either age 63 or age 65. The Commission at that time believed that raising the age to 65 would be a reasonable interim step to elimination of age as a factor in the employment of pilots. The Commission also believed that the then available medical, scientific and aviation data did not support raising the age limitation only to age 63 and that such a limited increase likely would bar development of sufficient health and safety data about commercial airline pilots over age 60 to assess the need for any pilot age limits.

We believe the reasons for the Commission's support of an age 65 limitation and opposition to an age 63 limit expressed in 1993 are even more valid today. There is no credible medical, scientific or pilot accident rate evidence supporting raising the age limitation to only age 63. Moreover, with the ever increasing improvements in the ability of aviation and medical science to routinely and accurately assess pilot skills and health on an individual basis regardless of age, increasing the age limitation to age 65 should be considered a very conservative step forward. Noteworthy is the fact that the medical and aviation communities of numerous countries, including most of Western Europe, have endorsed age 65, not age 63, as the appropriate age limitation for their commercial airline pilots.

We applaud the efforts to ensure that the FAA be allowed to enhance the medical, cognitive and proficiency testing of commercial airline pilots. However, the medical, cognitive or proficiency problems such testing would screen are not limited to pilots over age 60, but can be and are found in younger pilots as well. Limiting enhanced testing only to those pilots over age 60 would impact such pilots adversely and discriminatorily based solely on age.

For similar reasons, we also would oppose the bill's provision allowing the FAA the right to require that pilots over age 60 be paired with pilots under age 60, as studies have shown that the risk to public safety of having two pilots over age 60 in the cockpit is extremely small.

Notwithstanding EEOC's general opposition to any chronological age limitation for commercial pilots, the Commission does not oppose S.361, because we believe that raising the age limit is an important interim step in the process of eventually eliminating age as a determinative factor in the employment of airline commercial pilots. However, the Commission believes that amendments to S. 361 move in the wrong direction.

Attachment