Subject: The Truth: Safety and $200 Billion in Lost Career Earnings
Fellow EPAS Members,
Let’s be clear: raising the retirement age isn’t just about fairness, it’s about truth.
ALPA’s leadership continues to hide behind a false “safety” narrative, but the facts are crystal clear: when the age was raised from 60 to 65 in 2007, safety didn’t decline, it IMPROVED. Senior pilots pass the same medical exams, and simulator checks as everyone else, often serving as Check Airmen and mentors who make the entire flight deck stronger. Removing them early is not a safety measure, it’s a safety risk.
Here’s the math ALPA won’t talk about, a typical major airline captain can earn as much as $500,000 annually in their final years. Forcing retirement at 65 instead of 70 means $2.5 million in lost earnings per pilot. Across ALPA’s approximately 80,000 members, that’s $200 billion gone. Add in lost ALPA dues—about $50,000 per pilot, or $4 billion total— This is a staggering amount of economic damage.
That’s money stripped from pilots’ families and from ALPA’s own financial strength, all for a political stance that undermines both safety and economic security.
We need a policy based on performance and medical fitness—not politics. We need leadership that defends all pilots’ rights and livelihoods. And we need to keep telling the truth until Congress, the FAA, and ICAO listen.
Experience is safety. And experience has value—both in the cockpit and in the bank account.
EPAS is an advocacy group of approximately 2,000 airline pilots dedicated to eliminating the current arbitrary age-65 restriction for Part 121 pilots working to replace this outdated, arbitrary limit with a system based on proven competency, performance, and medical fitness.
· If you’re giving money to ALPA PAC, you’re fighting against yourself.
· ALPA is refunding dues this month—consider donating to EPAS to invest in your economic future.