Says Limit Forces Experienced Pilots Out Of Cockpit
The newly-created Senior Pilots Coalition (SPC), a group of
more than 300 pilots seeking to end alleged age discrimination at
US airlines, is supporting a legal action forcing the Federal
Aviation Administration to review the "Age 60" Rule.
The group alleges US airlines will lose the services of an
estimated 5,000 of the nation's most experienced pilots -- many of
them Vietnam War and Gulf War I Veterans -- if the FAA doesn't
rethink the ruling to require retirement at Age 60 by commercial
airline pilots.
The three pilots -- Lewis J. Tetlow, of Bedford, NH, Richard C.
Morgan of Charlottesville, VA., and Joseph G. LoVecchio, Lancaster,
PA -- are captains for US Airways and will be turning 60 within the
next 10 months. They are asking the court to direct FAA
Administrator Marion Blakey "to issue a decision on each
respondents pending request for an exemption from a regulation
forbidding him from flying as a pilot for his employer after his
sixtieth birthday."
Their proceeding demands immediate action by Blakey to overturn
the "Age 60 Rule" imposed in 1959.
The Senior Pilots Coalition contends: (1) Scientific Evidence
was not the basis for the "Age 60 Rule" and it was never about the
age and health of pilots; (2) Americans now live considerably
longer and are significantly healthier than they were in 1959; (3)
airline pilots, particularly those who have undergone military
training, are an extraordinarily fit group, particularly when
compared to the rest of the population; and (4) there is no known
case on the record of an age related in- air incident or accident
attributed to the age of a pilot.
President of the SPC Tetlow said: "The 'Age 60 Rule' is an
open-and-shut example of age-based discrimination of the worst and
most blatant kind. Trust me when I say that these experienced and
well-seasoned professionals are not the pilots that Americans want
to see given their walking papers."
Tetlow continues: "I am confident most Americans who fly for
business or personal reasons would be outraged to learn that
foreign commercial air carriers are permitted to fly within the
United States with pilots over the age of 60. This is simply
intolerable. US airline pilots are unceremoniously given the boot
at age 60; while our airspace remains completely open to non-US
commercial airline pilots over the age of 60."
"On Friday, March 23, 2007, Petitioners Tetlow and Morgan (and
others) met with the Deputy Associate Administrator and other
ranking officials of Respondent FAA. The FAA's Deputy Associate
Administrator informed them (1) that in the usual course of
business waiver applications are acted on within 120 days of
receipt; (2) changes to ['the Age 60 Rule'] are under
consideration; (3) no action on waiver applications would be taken
'piecemeal' because the regulation may be changed; and (4) it would
be September before the FAA is likely to finish its internal
consideration of changes to [the 'Age 60 Rule'] and months
thereafter before a rule change, if any, would occur."
The SPC was founded in February 2007, the fast-growing Senior
Pilots Coalition already has more than 300 members from the across
the United States. SPC is a national pilot organization dedicated
to ending age discrimination in the US commercial airline
industry.