The Air Line Pilots Association’s (ALPA) latest rejection of ICAO Working Paper 349 —a proposal to raise the upper pilot age limit to 67—is more of the same: hot air from a leadership more concerned with reelection than safety. Its talking points are contradictory and reveal a union trapped by populism, pandering to junior members, and abandoning the very principles on which it was founded.Most glaring is ALPA’s hypocrisy. Canadian pilots, represented by ALPA, routinely fly beyond age 65 under Canadian law, yet ALPA tells Congress and ICAO that age 67 is unsafe. If ALPA truly believed its rhetoric, it would oppose its Canadian members’ operations. Instead, the union applies double standards: Canadian pilots are acceptable past 65, but U.S. pilots—under identical ICAO and FAA medical standards—must be forced out.ALPA’s position is echoed by the Allied Pilots Association (APA), which also attacked ICAO WP/349 while representing pilots at American Airlines. Yet APA members fly side by side with ALPA’s Canadian members, who already exceed 65. The intellectual dishonesty is identical. It is not a coincidence: ALPA and APA have been engaged in merger talks for more than a decade, seeking to consolidate leadership power by pandering to the populist demands of their junior majorities.
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