Unions Supporting Change to the Age 60 Rule
Jun 4, 2003
Author: Paul Emens

UNIONS SUPPORTING CHANGE TO THE AGE 60 RULE
S. 959

The following union and pilot employee groups have voted to work toward changing the Age 60 Rule, a federal rule that forces pilots to be terminated at the age of 60 – regardless of health or competency:

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PILOTS ASSOCIATION (Independent)
JET BLUE (Independent)
AMERICAN TRANS AIR/ATA (ALPA Master Executive Council)
AMERICA WEST MEC (ALPA Master Executive Council)
SPIRIT (ALPA Master Executive Council)
CONTINENTAL (ALPA Local Executive Councils of Houston and Newark)
US AIRWAYS (ALPA Local Executive Council of Philadelphia)

For ALPA or anyone else to suggest that there is not support for changing this rule, or that ALPA speaks for all pilots, is simply untrue and very misleading.
An ALPA lobbyist admitted that there are 10,000 to 15,000 ALPA pilots who want the rule amended. He also said that ALPA was “working hard to keep them at bay”. What an outrageous statement! There are also, of course, thousands of non-ALPA pilots who also want the rule amended.

In short, there are tens of thousands of pilots who wish to see the Age 60 Rule amended.

Allow me to quote ALPA itself, circa 1968: “ALPA CONTNUES OPPOSITION TO AGE 60 RETIREMENT RULE – The Air Line Pilots Association strongly advocates that the Federal Air Regulation in its arbitrary age 60 retirement provision is unreasonably discriminating against all of the air line pilots…Shortening a pilots career with no realistic justification is cheating the public as well as the industry….ALPA has expended and continues to expend its utmost efforts in attempting to overcome this highly dissatisfying and unfair federal regulation.”

Sadly, ALPA turned its colors after supporting a change in the rule for twenty years, and now has institutionalized age discrimination through guaranteed job advancement for its younger pilots. One wonders: When did younger pilots became more valuable than experienced pilots?

PLEASE SUPPORT S.959 WHEN IT COMES UP FOR A VOTE AND ALLOW OUR NATION’S MOST EXPERIENCED PILOTS TO CONTINUE THEIR VALUED CAREERS

, for the good of civil aviation. As a matter of fact, 1959—the first full year of the FAA’s existence—has proved to be the worst airline-accident year in history.