(Reprinted by permission of The Dispatch)
Uphill
Every Tuesday and Friday Haley Byrd Wilt draws on her deep well of sources to shed light on
congressional policy debates—and the people behind them.
Congress Debates Airline Pilot Safety Measures
By Price St. Clair
Jul 28, 2023
7/28/23, 2:09 PM Congress Debates Airline Pilot Safety Measures – The Dispatch
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/uphill/congress-debates-airline-pilot-safety-measures/ 2/12
An American Airlines plane prepares to land at the Miami International Airport on May 2, 2023. (Photo by
Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) every few years is
typically a routine congressional act. But this year, a shortage of airline pilots
is contributing to widespread cancellations and chaos at American airports,
and lawmakers are sparring over proposed solutions FAA reauthorization
could codify.
With current authorizations set to expire on September 30, achieving
consensus on aviation issues will be one of the top items on Congress’ to-do
list once it returns from the August recess that began today.
Though multiple factors have contributed to the pilot shortage, one of the
most commonly cited is airline carriers’ decision in the early days of the
COVID-19 pandemic to offer pilots and other employees early retirement
packages as a cost-cutting measure. After more workers than expected took
those offers, and as travel increased as the pandemic eased, demand for flights
has outstripped the supply of crews.
A grassroots group of pilots is now asking Congress to mitigate the problem by
making one simple change: Raising the mandatory retirement age for airline
pilots from 65 to 67. Despite opposition from the largest pilots’ union in the
world (the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA) and the skepticism of union
friendly Democrats, they’re making progress.
The House’s version of the FAA reauthorization legislation included an
amendment by Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, whose brother is a pilot, to raise the
retirement age. Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee initially voted against adding Nehls’ amendment, but the bill itself
passed the full chamber last week with a large, bipartisan majority.
“That bill that started out as a grassroots effort to raise the age from 65 to 67
that we’ve worked so hard to insert has suddenly found huge bipartisan
support,” says Barry Kendrick, a pilot who was recently forced to retire from
airline flights due to the rule and the president of a nonprofit group
advocating for the policy change. “And now the Senate is taking on the same
issue.”
The FAA first introduced the “Age 60 Rule” in 1959, purportedly for safety
reasons, though backroom political dealing surrounding American Airlines’
eagerness to recruit young ex-military pilots may have also played a role. For
years afterward, ALPA opposed the rule, arguing it constituted age
discrimination. In 2007, Congress raised the age to 65 by a unanimous vote,
putting the U.S. in line with an emerging international standard.
At the time, ALPA praised Congress’ decision despite having opposed it before
the vote. Today, its tune is different. The Let Experienced Pilots Fly Act” will
complicate airline operations, add to costs and delays, disrupt collective
bargaining agreements, and has not been validated by the FAA,” the groups
says. The Biden administration’s position is more restrained but comes to the
same conclusion: “Making this change without doing research and
establishing any necessary policies would be outside the international
standard,” the White House said in a statement of policy last week.
But Kendrick’s group argues that this is misleading, and that there is plenty of
evidence that pilots flying over the age 65 is safe: Canada, Japan, Australia,
New Zealand and other countries allow it without incident. U.S. pilots are
tested on their competence in advanced simulators every six to nine months,
and those over the age of 40 undergo additional medical testing frequently.
And since the profession as a whole skew slightly older than the American
workforce, Kendrick has been telling congressional offices that “the area you
need to be concerned about is not safety on the upper age limit, it’s the safety
on the lower age limit.”
“Due to the pilot shortage, inexperienced pilots are being forced into these
captain positions at a faster rate than their experience will allow them to get,”
he says. “Experience matters.”
While pilots older than 65 currently wouldn’t be able to fly internationally due
to the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) rules, domestic
flights are where the demand is most pressing. It’s plausible that ICAO would
adjust its rules to catch up to the United States, as happened after the Age 60
Rule was originally introduced. The International Air Transport Association,
which represents airlines across the world, supports such a change, and the
age limitations issue is on the agenda for an ICAO conference in Montreal next
month.
Kendrick insists that this shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and that his group isn’t
motivated by anti-union politics. “We are all proud union members and agree
with our unions on many issues—just not this one,” he says.
But the group agrees that ALPA has gotten this issue wrong, letting its desire
to secure good contracts for younger pilots outweigh the interests of more
experienced pilots as well as the “flying public.”
Republicans have tended to embrace the issue more eagerly than Democrats,
who have been more wary of bucking ALPA’s position. But the effort in the
Senate, led by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, has at least two
Democratic co-sponsors—Joe Manchin of West Virginia and former naval
aviator and astronaut Mark Kelly of Arizona. And that may be enough to get
the final, bipartisan product to the president’s desk with the age-raising
provision intact.
“We’re working on it every day,” Graham tells The Dispatch. “I think it will
help the consumer a lot.”
In addition to the retirement age issue, the Senate will consider another
amendment meant to address the pilot shortage after its August recess. Sens.
John Thune and Kyrsten Sinema propose allowing 150 hours of simulator
training to count toward the 1,500 hours of total training required to become a
pilot. Disagreement over that idea among the members of the Commerce
Committee has been a major sticking point delaying the Senate’s action on the
broader FAA legislation.