This story is bound to attract hate mail. Perhaps not as much the Chinese airline maintenance one – but there you are. We think this idea of allowing pilots to fly up to 65 is plain wrong. OK, we said it.

The FAA will propose to raise the mandatory retirement age for U.S. commercial pilots from 60 to 65. Can you imagine? The fear is so many pilots have lost their pensions and need the extra five years to make the money. How about the pilots tell us how they got into this mess? Pilots are the most greedy airline employees. They have, as a group, hammered every airline. They work half a week and earn as much as a medical doctor. Maybe they make more now because doctors are nailed by health insurance. Pilots have screwed up pensions because they played a huge part in screwing up the airlines in the first place.

“A pilot’s experience counts — it’s an added margin of safety,” says FAA Administrator Marion Blakey. “Foreign airlines have demonstrated that experienced pilots in good health can fly beyond age 60 without compromising safety.” More experience? They sure do! And we're not talking only about flying here.

America has TOO MANY PILOTS, which is why so many have gone overseas to get jobs. Young pilots are earning very little at the start of their careers. By the way, they fly small planes without the fancy technology and do takeoffs and landings all day at small airports and fly in the weather. The senior pilots manage systems on big jets, at over 30,000 feet, and maybe do one landing or a takeoff every 24 hours. Who do you think is working harder? Its not the 60 year old in the 777. Boeing and Airbus have put so many backup systems into these planes they virtually fly themselves. Yes, they can auto takeoff and auto land. So what, exactly, is the value of grandpa on the flight deck? (You make the same argument about flight attendants, but not today, one fight is enough.)

The pilots' unions, the perennial bane of the airline industry, have secured themselves by ensuring pilot pay is based on airplane weight. So the "geezers" in the cockpit of big planes are protected while those starting out are struggling. If you want to argue that big planes mean bigger responsibility – that's no argument. Every life is equally precious. Bigger planes have double crews on long flights and the work load is unequal. Smaller planes are a lot more work. Ask any pilot.

Keeping older pilots around does not help the profession at all. It increases the supply of the most expensive people in the industry when it needs to get rid of them. Every profession needs rotation to keep it healthy. Getting the older guys out also helps the many young women trying to improve their seniority. Imagine if white collar workers stayed until they were 80….would that help office workers? No, of course not. The older pilots are a primary cause of the US airline industry's financial woes. Older does not mean better.

This story is bound to attract hate mail. Perhaps not as much the Chinese airline maintenance one – but there you are. We think this idea of allowing pilots to fly up to 65 is plain wrong. OK, we said it.

The FAA will propose to raise the mandatory retirement age for U.S. commercial pilots from 60 to 65. Can you imagine? The fear is so many pilots have lost their pensions and need the extra five years to make the money. How about the pilots tell us how they got into this mess? Pilots are the most greedy airline employees. They have, as a group, hammered every airline. They work half a week and earn as much as a medical doctor. Maybe they make more now because doctors are nailed by health insurance. Pilots have screwed up pensions because they played a huge part in screwing up the airlines in the first place.

“A pilot’s experience counts — it’s an added margin of safety,” says FAA Administrator Marion Blakey. “Foreign airlines have demonstrated that experienced pilots in good health can fly beyond age 60 without compromising safety.” More experience? They sure do! And we're not talking only about flying here.

America has TOO MANY PILOTS, which is why so many have gone overseas to get jobs. Young pilots are earning very little at the start of their careers. By the way, they fly small planes without the fancy technology and do takeoffs and landings all day at small airports and fly in the weather. The senior pilots manage systems on big jets, at over 30,000 feet, and maybe do one landing or a takeoff every 24 hours. Who do you think is working harder? Its not the 60 year old in the 777. Boeing and Airbus have put so many backup systems into these planes they virtually fly themselves. Yes, they can auto takeoff and auto land. So what, exactly, is the value of grandpa on the flight deck? (You make the same argument about flight attendants, but not today, one fight is enough.)

The pilots' unions, the perennial bane of the airline industry, have secured themselves by ensuring pilot pay is based on airplane weight. So the "geezers" in the cockpit of big planes are protected while those starting out are struggling. If you want to argue that big planes mean bigger responsibility – that's no argument. Every life is equally precious. Bigger planes have double crews on long flights and the work load is unequal. Smaller planes are a lot more work. Ask any pilot.

Keeping older pilots around does not help the profession at all. It increases the supply of the most expensive people in the industry when it needs to get rid of them. Every profession needs rotation to keep it healthy. Getting the older guys out also helps the many young women trying to improve their seniority. Imagine if white collar workers stayed until they were 80….would that help office workers? No, of course not. The older pilots are a primary cause of the US airline industry's financial woes. Older does not mean better.