AN AUSTRALIAN industrial-relations court, has overturned the compulsory retirements of two, 60-year-old Qantas captains.
The judgement says that compulsory retirement should be replaced by a process of "individual screening of individual pilots, regardless of age."
In supporting one (short-haul) captain's application, Chief Justice Wilcox found that he was entitled to re-instatement to his former position and treatment by Qantas as having been continuously employed. He also ordered that he be repaid lost remuneration.
The other (long-haul) captain's application, although successful on the medical/safety issue, was dismissed on the basis of "operational factors" - a reference to the USA's age-60 rule for pilots flying in its airspace. The rule is followed, by some Asian countries.
Wilcox says that Qantas had relied on the evidence of overseas studies, the logic and methodology of which he questioned, and of US aviation medicine expert Dr Charles Billings.
The judge has declared: "Given the time and effort expended in America examining the age-60 rule, it is remarkable to say so, but it seems to me that none of the cited studies supports any conclusion about the relationship between that rule and aircraft safety.
"Dr Billings has long been an advocate of the age-60 rule to the point where it must be difficult for him to give open-minded consideration to an alternative approach. I am not persuaded that he has been able to do this."
The judge says that the evidence of medical witnesses, including Civil Aviation Authority director of aviation medicine Dr Robert Liddell, "...positively satisfies me that there is a better alternative to mandatory retirement at age 60 - an alternative that need not compromise Qantas' high safety standards."
Ansett Australia has already abandoned the age-60 rule, and now has several pilots who have passed that age.
Source: Flight International
