As policymakers work toward a May 10 deadline to pass a new FAA reauthorization bill, special interest groups are lobbying to raise the pilot retirement age to 67, a change that the FAA doesn’t support and that will needlessly complicate air travel just as record numbers of passengers take to the skies.
The argument hinges on a false claim that there’s a pilot shortage, even though there are more than enough pilots to meet current demand, with plenty more in the training pipeline.
The bottom line? Arbitrarily raising the pilot retirement age is nothing more than an ill-conceived solution to a fake problem.
