Speaker's Corner
Aug 13, 2003
Author: Alan Fishback

Speaker's Corner - July 24, 2003
Aug 13, 2003
Author: Alan Fishback

My name is Alan Fishback, I am a reserve 737 Capt in Houston. I am here to talk about the Age 60 Rule. Thank you for this opportunity to be here in Speaker‘s corner.

I am 56 years old, about 3 l/2 years from retirement. I have been interested in changing the Age 60 Rule for many years, beginning when I was a F /0 at Frontier in 1978. By the early 1980s I was seeing many Captains being forced to retire when they didn't really want to or just weren‘t ready. They were mostly healthy, happy in their work, and I enjoyed sharing the cockpit with them. It seemed a shame to lose their valuable experience for no justifiable reason other than the Age 60 Rule. For some of them, they said they were going to miss flying, and others were faced with a financial challenge.

Most importantly, I thought, "Some day that could be me". So I began my own journey on the path of opposition to the Age 60 Rule. I started with my district Congressman in Colorado where I lived. When I went to see Congressman Joel Hefley and explained my reason for seeing him, the Age 60 rule, he pointed his finger at me and said, "You know, my brother-in-law is an airline pilot, and every time he comes over to my house he gives me a hard time about that Age 60 rule. I'll tell you what, we are going to change that rule." Well, of course he didn't know what he was up against. Today, Cong. Hefley is still in the House of Representatives, and the Rule still hasn't changed. But to his credit, Joel Hefley has tried to overturn the Age 60 rule many times, and has been a cosponsor of legislation for this purpose every time it has been proposed right up to today. HR 1063, to change the retirement age for pilots to 65, is in the US House of Representatives in the 108th Congress, and Congressman Joel Hefley of Colorado is a proud cosponsor once again. S 959 is the companion bill in the Senate, proposed by Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma.

At the most fundamental level, at the very core of the Age 60 Rule, there is for me the wrongfulness of what is forced on all of us, good citizens, responsible, patriots, some of us military veterans, being forced to obey a government regulation that was not justified on any credible medical or scientific basis.

I have learned that the Age 60 Rule was to a great extent based on an act of personal favoritism. In 1959 the FAA Administrator, Elwood Quesada, did a favor for his WW II fellow Army staff officer, CR Smith, who at the time was the Chairman of American Airlines. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the Professional Pilots Federation obtained, among other many other documents, a personal letter from CR Smith to "Dear Pete" Quesada asking the FAA Administrator to establish a regulatory retirement age for pilots because of Smith's inability to conclude a satisfactory labor negotiation with American's pilots. CR’s more expensive senior pilots were ungraciously refusing to retire from the cockpit. Two months after CR ' s letter to "Dear Pete", the FAA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking indicating that all US airline pilots would be terminated from employment on their 60th birthday for "safety reasons". Ten months later, the Age 60 Rule became final. And not too long after the Rule became law, Pete Quesada left his position as FAA Administrator and took his place on the Board of Directors at American Airlines.

For more than 40 years, the FAA has defended the Age 60 Rule on the basis of statistically flawed and misconstrued medical reports that today no respected medical professional will recognize. Indeed, just this year, 2003, a study by a research team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine concluded that there is simply NO medical or statistical safety basis for the Age 60 Rule. And the actual safety record of airlines around the world who have for years been allowed by their governments to continue to employ pilots past the age of 60 demonstrates that an excellent safety record has been maintained.

So if we conclude that Age 60 is not appropriate for airline pilots to retire, what age is appropriate? It is true that any chronological age limit would be arbitrary. Removing the upper age limit completely, however, does not have support in the Congress, and the European regulatory standard of 65 seems acceptable, has been shown to be safe, and is a fair and reasonable, but significant, improvement over the present Age 60 Rule.

What would happen to us if the retirement age went to 65? A lot of things would certainly change. Consider that your lifetime earnings would increase substantially. Multiply your expected annual salary in the year prior to age 60 by five if you worked to 65. Add to that the increase in Social Security benefits at 65 versus reduced benefits at 62. Add the effect of NOT beginning to immediately draw down your retirement funds at 60 and instead adding to them and allowing them to grow for five more years. Do your own math. Clearly there are some significant numbers here.

Consider what if, God forbid, CAL goes broke again like it did in 1983 when our pilot retirement plan was terminated, or even worse, like USAirways is experiencing today, a takeover of the plan by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Those pilots are looking at a maximum benefit of ,000 per year, and many will get less. If those pilots were allowed to work to age 65, the PBGC maximum becomes ,000 per year. That's a nearly 40% whack courtesy of the Age 60 Rule.

Lets take a look at some of the most worrisome potential effects of changing the Age 60 Rule. Some of the questions that come up are these:

Would an already retired pilot be able to return to work and reclaim his previous position and seniority number?

In my view, NO. There is no provision in our pilot employment contract for a pilot who has terminated his employment at the airline by retirement, has accepted his retirement benefit as a settlement for his years of employment, and whose name is no longer on the CAL System Seniority List, to assert that he has a right to return to his previous position. There is no reason to think that anyone attempting to assert such a position would be successful. A change to the Age 60 Rule WOULD, however, allow a retired pilot to exercise his fundamental right to seek employment in his profession, to apply the skills he has acquired over a lifetime, at ANY airline as a new employee. A 60+ pilot could perhaps find employment at an expanding carrier like Jet Blue or Southwest and perhaps see the left seat again, or perhaps even see it for the first time.


Would I have to work past 60 if I didn't want to?

NO. Even if the retirement age is moved to 65, when you decide to retire before that point, no one is going to come to your neighborhood, knock on your door and tell you, “You have to come to work now.”

How would our present retirement plan be affected? Would a pilot who wanted to retire at 60 be penalized?

Under our present contract, the specified retirement age for a pilot is 60. So a change to the regulation would require a renegotiation of this and other provisions of the retirement plan. There are several ways we may choose to re-engineer our plan. The important thing to keep in mind is that the end product will be achieved through a negotiation process that is driven by our prioritizing our needs and wishes. For example, we may choose to specify that pilots who still want to retire at 60 may do so and receive the same benefit that they do today under the Age 60 Rule. At TWA, the specified retirement age was 65 for all employees. Since pilots were required to terminate at 60, they had a provision in their contract called "Subsidized Early Retirement", allowing a pilot to retire at 60 without an "early retirement" reduction. So there are ways around the early retirement reduction that have been used in the past at other airlines. And, as we know from recent history right here at Continental, Second Officers were able to continue working past 60 with no great upheaval in the CARP. By using our resources and some innovative thinking we can achieve a desirable result.

What about furloughed pilots?

In my view, this is the only serious reason why you would want not want to change the Age 60 rule at this time. I had this experience, twice, at Frontier, and it was no picnic. My wife took a job at the school cafeteria at 0/mo and I got a job as a car salesman. It was not pretty. Two things come to mind about this problem. In some cases today, the greater harm is being experienced by pilots, especially those at a bankrupt carrier, who have reached age 60 and are going to get a max of ,000 for the rest of their life. There will be no "recall" from that "furlough". It is a life sentence. And no adjustment for inflation, which diminishes PBGC payments even further in the years ahead.

Secondly, if you expected to be recalled from furlough at age 40, under the Age 60 rule you would have 20 years remaining on your career, working from 40 to 60. If the retirement age changed to 65 and in the worst case you were now recalled at 45 instead of 40, you could work to age 65. From 45 to 65 you would still have the same 20 years remaining in your career. A "neutral" effect in the number of pilot career earning years. I really believe most pilots would not work to the maximum retirement age if it is moved to 65. Most would choose to retire before that time, at 62 perhaps, when they can receive at least a reduced Social Security benefit. As you may already know, if you do not work at all between 60 and 62 you will receive a further reduction from the already reduced benefit at 62.

To me, with the exception of the hardship at this time on furloughed pilots, this is almost a no brainer. Yes, there are some uncertainties about how it would all work out, uncertainties that would persist through a transition period of a few years. And pilots hate uncertainty. But the potential benefits outweigh the drawbacks and uncertainties.

If you agree with me but are thinking "yes the Age 60 Rule should be changed, but not right now, I want to wait a few years, see some retirement off the top, move up a little, THEN I would like to see the Rule changed. . . . ", you must realize that strategy won't work. Because when you get close to retirement you will be standing here in Speaker’s Corner where I am, addressing a new group of skeptical younger pilots who will be saying to themselves, "Yes the Age 60 Rule should be changed, but not right now, I want to wait a few years, etc..". And the cycle will continue and the Rule will remain. The Rule will only change if enough of us are willing to step up and conclude that we will have to accept some discomfort for awhile, in order to make a better day down the road.

How do you go about making a change? We must get ALPA national to change its official policy on Age 60. The movement within our union to do just that is under way, led by airlines such as America West and American Trans Air, whose MECs have already taken an official position in opposition to the Age 60 Rule. We must talk to our elected ALPA representatives, both here at CAL and at the national level, and express our views. Outside ALPA, Southwest Airlines (SWAPA) has taken a position opposing the Rule, with unrestricted support from Herb Kelleher and the rest of their management.

We can also join with other pilots in organizations that are active in this effort, such as the Professional Pilots Federation ( www.ppf.org) and Air Line Pilots Against Age Discrimination (www.alpaad.com). These are grass roots pilot groups that travel to Washington, lobby Congress, write letters, etc. Pay a personal visit to your Congressman and your Senators. Get your family involved writing letters - your sister, your mom, your neighbor.

At present we are flying to a destination, the Age 60 International Airport. We have no weather forecast, and no alternate. If you have add fuel in your 401 k, check the gages, you may have a fuel leak. Another terrorist attack, a war with North Korea, a prolonged economic decline or ill timed stock market collapse, a divorce, kids entering college, a parent with catastrophic illness - - you could arrive at the Age 60 outer marker like many of our colleagues today, with weather below minimums, no alternate, no ideas, and not much extra gas.

Changing the Age 60 Rule is about gaining a choice for yourself and other pilots, giving all of us an alternate. Land if you can, use the alternate if you need it.

The Age 60 Rule should be changed for many reasons. But it will never change until enough of us convert our desire into action, and create the change for ourselves.

Thanks for your time.

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