Compulsory Retirement of Air Line Pilots

Abstract

One of the basic issues behind the continuing controversy over mandatory versus discretionary retirement of older workers is the capacity of such workers to meet standards of performance. In particular, it is debated whether there is any close association between age and performance, such as to justify the establishment of an arbitrary age at which all members of a particular occupational group should be required to retire from that employment. This issue has become acute in the air lines since the issuance of a regulation by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency, on March 15, 1960, forbidding any individual who had attained age 60 to continue in service as a pilot on a scheduled air carrier. This regulation, which is now in litigation, was preceded by a series of retirement disputes between the Air Line Pilots Association and various commercial air carriers under the Railway Labor Act. This article traces these disputes, describes the arguments involved in the legal contest over the FAA directive, and discusses the industrial relations developments which may follow if the retirement regulation is sustained in the courts. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)