ALPA didn’t even bother with the safety scapegoat. The leaders danced around an implied, and non-existent vote that the members didn’t support it to retain power. I never got a vote and my 30 years of dues have never been in arrears.
Theirs never been such a large group of a younger demographic in ALPA before, and this is straight union politics.
The reasonable person would think science and medical fitness would be factors in the discussion, but sadly it’s all the politics of retaining power in the world’s largest pilot union.
The internal machinations of ALPA is the only factor driving the mandatory retirement age and the average observer has no window into that, so they mistakenly assume it has something to do with safety and common sense.
Ooh, careful, Raf. Don’t poke the bear!
Kidding aside, your point is valid. If fact, I think that the Presidency may well require greater stamina owing to the fact that it is a 24/7/365 position with little down time. However, I would also posit that age limits should be equally applied to Congress and the Supreme Court! Considering the number of fossils inhabiting the halls of Congress, the Capitol building could be labeled as an archeological dig site!
Again, kidding aside, many of the age limitation standards in use today were done at a time when the average lifespan was considerably shorter than it is today. They are also used, as other have said, because a set age is a simple and predictable end point that is equally applied to everyone in that profession. Setting an “on condition” limitation is probably much fairer, but it requires both the government and the medical profession to establish physical and mental ability rules that would be constantly contested by someone who was just rejected during an exam. Given the choice between easy and fair, the government will always choose the easy route.
