Some pilots need to be reminded of the high level of responsibility conferred on them, and that fighting for rights can be inappropriate
At what age do you cease to be a sufficiently safe pilot? A group of US pilots is fighting for the right to fly public commercial air transport aircraft beyond the age of 60, which is the US Federal Aviation Administration maximum, and the agreed International Civil Aviation Organisation standard. The FAA has already won a court case on this issue, but now the pilots have returned with an allegation that the FAA's first administrator had designated the 60-year age limit for corrupt reasons, so making the rule invalid in law.
Being a pilot in charge of a public transport aeroplane is no ordinary job, but in recent years the status accorded to the profession has fallen - at least to some degree. One side effect of this gradual process has been for some pilots - a minority perhaps, but a vociferous one - to campaign more about the rights their licences give them, and seemingly to worry less about the responsibilities it incurs.
A perceived reduction in pilots' professional standing is not justified by the task being any less complex. In fact, the reverse is true. Pilots now have at their disposal navigation systems and a degree of automation that their forbears could only have dreamed of. But this same technology has made the total machine more complex, cut the number of crew carrying out the task, and enabled the world's air traffic management systems to demand that pilots fly far more accurate trajectories.
Meanwhile, the bigger the aeroplane, the greater the onus of responsibility on the captain's shoulders. Today's average aircraft is massive compared with those operating just after Second World War - and flies faster and farther.
The more insidious and potentially worrying factors in this change are the ones that have downgraded the profession in the eyes of pilots themselves and their employers. One factor is the power that pilot unions wield in industrial disputes. It needs to be deployed responsibly - if it is not, those who use it lose respect. This works both ways, however. During the 1980s, in the wake of deregulation in the USA when airlines were still in painful transition into the new openly competitive marketplace, the then-chief of Continental Airlines, Frank Lorenzo, applied successfully for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He then used this status unusually ruthlessly - if within the law - to decimate union power and employees' conditions of service.
The violent animosity that this provoked in pilot union members led to some ugly incidents, and the whole situation reflected badly on all the parties involved. This was the first of a number of industrial battles that dealt a serious blow to pilot self-esteem worldwide, and there is now a tendency for many pilots to act - and speak - as if they see themselves as embattled species - as people who have to fight for their rights.
That may be so at the industrial level, but not in all spheres.
There is a serious question as to whether winning a battle like the age question on a legal nicety is the right thing to do. The real issue is the point at which the risk of physical or mental degradation due to age becomes unacceptable in someone with the tasks and responsibilities of an airline pilot. There is clearly a degree of arbitrariness in exactly what age should be chosen as a cut-off point. The International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA) puts it well when it describes 60 as "a sensible age" to call a halt. Almost all IFALPA's constituent associations favour that age as being the right one, so this issue is recognised by the pilot unions as being one neither of industrial nor of automatic human rights.
Medical advisers to the UK Civil Aviation Authority say the risk of cardiovascular incapacitation in UK male pilots aged between 60 and 64 increases progressively, but averages 1% per annum in that period. One problem is that individual vulnerability to incapacitation can go undetected by flight-crew medical examinations, and can take place with virtually no symptomatic warning. So the CAA operates a hybrid rule, based on the existing European Joint Aviation Requirement, allowing pilots to operate to age 64, but only in multi-crew aircraft in which the other flight crew members are less than age 60. Despite this, Italy and France adhere to the ICAO age-60 maximum.
Until research shows that pilot health and robustness has improved so dramatically it justifies a re-examination of the rules by ICAO, pilot groups trying to use points of law to win the right to fly to age 65 do an injustice to the reputation of a worthy profession.
Source: Flight International
