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Senate Votes to Up Pilot Retirement Age

Posted on: Thursday, 13 December 2007, 00:00 CST

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted late Wednesday to extend the retirement age for commercial pilots to 65, sending the measure to the president's desk.

The bill would change a 1960 Federal Aviation Administration regulation forcing pilots to leave the cockpit at age 60. The House passed the legislation unanimously Tuesday.

The legislation would put the U.S. retirement age in line with international standards. The International Civil Aviation Organization adopted an age 65 retirement age in November 2006.

The retirement age provision was originally included in a larger bill to reauthorize FAA programs that the House passed in September. But with the FAA bill unlikely to see action in the Senate this year, members of the House agreed to move the retirement bill separately in hopes of winning quick Senate approval.

The bill would require pilots who reach age 60 to have a medical certificate renewed every six months, to continue to participate in FAA pilot training and qualification programs and to be administered a line check every six months.

Following international practices, flights out of U.S. airports for foreign destinations would have to have at least one pilot under age 60.

The legislation is not retroactive, and airlines would not be required to hire back pilots who retire before the measure goes into effect.

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The bill is H.R. 4343.

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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