'Contentious' Issue Splits Committee

The volatile question of whether to raise the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots, from 60 to 65, gridlocked the committee named by the FAA to investigate the matter.

Bloomberg reports the panel disbanded at the end of November without a formal recommendation to the FAA.

As Aero-News reported, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey convened the panel in September, in response to lawmakers and pilots calling on the agency to adopt the same standard as the International Civil Aviation Organization.

"The age 60 issue remains contentious for the commercial aviation industry," wrote the panelists, who included airline representatives and pilot union leaders. Instead of a consensus opinion, their report devoted roughly equal amounts of space to each side's argument.

In favor of adopting the new ICAO standards -- which went into effect November 23, and allow pilots between the ages of 60-65 to fly as long as long as the other pilot is less than 60 -- were representatives from Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, and a group known as Airline Pilots Against Age Discrimination.

Six panel members voted against raising the age -- including four representatives of the Air Line Pilots Association. Panelists from American Airlines, and its Allied Pilots Association, also opposed changing the current laws.

Not surprisingly, how any one pilot feels about the issue generally depends on their age. Older pilots want to work longer, to make up for some of the benefits they've lost as airlines struggled financially. Younger pilots -- those near the bottom of their airlines' seniority lists -- oppose the rule, as they're looking for new opportunities.

The co-chairs of the committee -- Air Transport Association president James May, and Air Line Pilots Association president Duane Woerth -- declined to endorse either position. A representative of the Aerospace Medical Association filed a separate opinion stating "age should not be the sole criterion" for forcing airline pilots to retire.

The group achieved consensus on one point: that if the FAA decides to change the mandatory retirement age, it should not do so retroactively. "Any element of retroactivity would add more complexity to the issue and make it almost impossible for any agreement on implementation," according to the report.

"This breaks down along some predictable lines," said William Voss, chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation. "This isn't going to help Marion Blakey very much."

The FAA is reviewing the report now, before issuing its say on the matter.

FMI: www.apaad.org, www.faa.gov