Dignified and Old

February 9, 2024

So, earlier this week the U.S. Senate’s Commerce Committee shot down the move to increase the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67. The measure lost by a single vote. Lawmakers succumbed to pressure from the Air Line Pilots Association, which spent months lobbying against the change.

The matter now goes to committee and there’s still a shot it could pass. But I wouldn’t count on it.

ALPA opposed the measure, but many of its constituents, including myself, did not. The union spun the whole thing as a safety issue, and warned of air travel becoming more “complicated” if it went through. The simpler truth is that ALPA has grown beholden to its younger members, who now comprise most of its membership, and who see raising the retirement age as an impediment to their career progression.

Which technically it would be, resulting in slower attrition, fewer upgrades and all that. But it’d be a small one. And these pilots too would have the opportunity to work an extra couple of years at the finale of their tenures, if they so choose.

For older hands like me, there’s resentment. Resentment because the luck and good fortune enjoyed by the newest generation of pilots cannot be overstated.

Entry-level salaries are the highest they’ve ever been. Even at the regional carriers, young pilots can bring in six figure salaries without much effort. Meanwhile at the majors, pilots are zooming up the seniority lists, with some getting captain slots before their 30th birthday. These pilots will be millionaires before age 40.

These same junior pilots skated through the COVID-19 fiasco without a hiccup. Thanks to taxpayer bailouts, they avoided furloughs and in some cases were paid nearly a full salary to simply stay at home for a year. Many took second jobs and collected two salaries.

For those of us of baby-boomer and Generation X vintage, such fortune is difficult to fathom.

In my day, regional pilots were making fifteen grand a year and paying for their own training. Most pilots didn’t make it to the majors until well into their 30s, if they made it at all. After slogging it out at the regionals and a cargo carrier for nine years, I was hired by a major carrier in the spring of 2000 at age 35. Starting pay at the time was around $30,000 a year.

Then came the industry crash in 2001, and thousands of us found ourselves laid off. Those who kept their jobs were hit with massive pay and benefit cuts and elimination of pensions as the airlines went through a cycle of chapter 11 bankruptcies.

My furlough lasted five years. When I finally went back to work in 2007, I was 40 years-old and my salary was about $65,000. That was sixth-year pay. And it was the most I’d ever made in my life.

While all that was going on, the retirement age was bumped from 60 to 65. You think two years is a drag chute on your career progression, try five. But we dealt with it, and now we too can work until that age.

Long and short, we have some catching up to do. Those two extra years would be a huge help. The money, the health benefits.

New-hires in 2024 are earning in their first one or two years what it took us a decade’s worth of seniority to make. Projected over a thirty or forty-year career, the earning potential for a pilot hired today is absurd. Adjust for inflation all you want; the differential over any length of time is huge.

Wars, recessions, and any of a dozen other calamities could set the industry reeling yet again, it’s true. But that doesn’t offset the tremendously good fortune the newest pilots are currently basking in. My peers and I faced those same risks, but without the front-end benefits of today’s generation. Things might go sour at some point, but if nothing else they’re making fantastic money in the meantime. For us that wasn’t the case.

The younger gang is having its cake and eating it too, frosting and all. Maybe it’s human nature; call it selfishenss or self-interest. If I were in their shoes, what would my vote be? Still it feels greedy, even petty, as one generation of pilots prevents its predecessors from making up lost ground.

 

Original Story:
DIGNIFIED AND OLD

Related Story:
THE REGIONAL RECKONING.

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Numbers graphic by the author.

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Dignified and Old

July 26, 2023

A PROPOSAL is moving through the U.S. Congress right now that would increase the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 65 to 67. The proposal has momentum and bipartisan support, and many expect it to become law.

Count me among those hoping this happens.

Those pushing for the change cite the ongoing pilot shortage as one of the reasons. Fair enough, though for me it’s more personal. For one, I really enjoy my job. As things currently stand I have eight years left, and I’d love to stay at it for a couple more (assuming all the radiation exposure doesn’t kill me first). But perhaps more importantly, I have a substantial amount of lost income to make up for, having been laid off for half a decade in my mid-thirties — prime earning years.

Not everyone is on board, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Also among the opposers is the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the world’s largest pilot union. This might seem a bit of a head-scratcher, and I suspect their resistance is owed to demographics: pilot rosters are skewing younger and younger these days, and many of the newest pilots see age 67 as a threat to their career progression. Older pilots like me will stay on the property slightly longer, the thinking goes, impeding their seniority advantages (aircraft bidding, seat bidding, and so forth).

Forgive me if I’m less than sympathetic.

In 2001, after slogging it out at the regionals and a cargo carrier for nine years, I was hired by a major carrier at age 35. Starting annual pay at the time was around $30,000, and I was promptly furloughed in the wake of the September 11th attacks. (My ensuing gig as an online columnist and author was fun, but by no means lucrative.)

While I was out of work, my airline, along with several others, declared bankruptcy. Industry-wide, wages were cut some 40 percent and retirement plans eliminated.

Then, in 2007, shortly after being recalled, the retirement age was extended not merely two years, but five, from age 60 to age 65. Not only did I miss out on several years of major airline salary, but the minute I got back, seniority movement slowed to a crawl.

You wanna whine about threats to your career progression? Try five years of furlough, a bankruptcy, and a massive seniority slowdown first.

If this sounds like a sob story, it’s not just mine. Thousands of other airline pilots went through all of the same things — or worse.

The industry has since changed dramatically, and pilots entering the ranks today have never had it better. It’s common now for the legacy carriers to bring on pilots in their mid-twenties, and under the latest contracts, new-hires are earning in their first one or two years what it used to take a decade or more to make. When I returned from furlough, my sixth-year first officer hourly rate was $65 per flight hour. Pilots are now making $100 or more per hour on day one.

These same pilots are upgrading to captain in record time (at some airlines, new-hires are getting widebody captain slots), and otherwise racing up the seniority lists. Projected over a thirty or forty-year career, the earning potential for a pilot hired today is absurd. Adjust for inflation all you want; the differential over any length of time is huge.

I should mention also that salaries at the regional carriers have vastly improved. Most airline pilots begin their careers at the regional level, and here too they are cashing in. In my day, starting pay at the regionals was under $20,000 a year, working conditions were abysmal, and in some cases you had to pay for your own training. Today an RJ pilot can easily bring in six figures. You can make a good living even before scoring that dream job with a major.

To say nothing of the fact that junior pilots skated through the COVID-19 fiasco without so much as a hiccup. Thanks to the taxpayer bailouts, they avoided furloughs and in some cases were paid nearly a full salary to simply stay at home for a year. Many of them took on second jobs and collected two salaries.

For those of us of baby-boomer and Generation X vintage, such fortune is difficult to fathom. Hence, when I hear some twentysomething hotshot whining about the “damage” the age 67 change might wreak, my reaction is a combination of exasperation and bemusement. You’ve got to be kidding.

Wars, recessions, and any of a dozen other calamities could set the industry reeling yet again, it’s true. But that doesn’t offset the tremendously good fortune the newest pilots are currently basking in. I, along with thousands of my peers, faced those same risks, but without the front-end benefits of today’s generation. Things might go sour at some point, but if nothing else they’re making fantastic money in the meantime. For us that wasn’t the case.

All told, it has never been a better time to be a pilot.

If you’re worried about competency, training cycles and medical certification standards are there to ensure older pilots are up to the task. And, I should add, nobody is going to force you to work until 67. You’re free to retire at 65, or any other age at which you feel comfortable. And the extra two years aren’t just for the older workers; they’re for the new-hires as well, eventually.

The idea isn’t without its complications. Most foreign authorities remain committed to the age 65 limit, effectively blocking any U.S. airline pilot over that age from flying beyond American borders. Unless that changes, pilots between 65 and 67 would be restricted to domestic-only routes. This will cause some training headaches and require some finessing of airline seniority lists, but it’s certainly doable.

You’ll maybe detect a tone of resentment in this piece. That’s not quite how I mean it. Much as I might be jealous, I cannot begrudge anyone the advantages of youth and fortuitous timing. Good for them. Just please don’t take it for granted. They need to understand how lucky they are, and how different things used to be. While most new pilots realize this, there are those who don’t, and who seem to think they’re entitled to a hassle-free career and a bursting bank account before they’ve hit 30. If you’re in that camp, try to understand why and how, to some of your older coworkers, griping over a two-year age extension sounds greedy and petty.

 

Related Story:
THE REGIONAL RECKONING.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
Numbers graphic by the author.

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