Ted Cruz urges Trump to back older retirement age for pilots

Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who heads the US Senate’s commerce committee, has urged Donald Trump to support international efforts by an airline trade group to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 – despite opposition from a pilots association, which says such a move could increase travel risks.

In a letter first reported by Reuters on Sunday, Cruz asked Trump to support efforts the upcoming opening of a United Nations aviation meeting in Montreal.

“America should lead on the international stage in support of raising, or even abolishing, the pilot retirement age,” said Cruz, who leads the Senate panel overseeing aviation issues. He added current policy is “forcing thousands of highly qualified and experienced pilots into early retirement every year”.

In 2024, Congress rejected a push to raise the mandatory airline pilot retirement age to 67 from 65. Lawmakers rejected the bid to hike the retirement age after some cited a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which had called for a scientific and safety analysis before making the decision.

International rules prohibit airline pilots older than 65 from flying international flights, and many countries, including the US, apply the same rule domestically as well.

The White House did not immediately comment.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will consider an airline trade group’s proposal to raise pilots’ retirement age globally to 67 when delegates gather for its triennial assembly starting on Tuesday.

Transportation secretary Sean Duffy and FAA chief Bryan Bedford are among the US officials attending this week.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents about 350 airlines, has said raising the limit by two years can be done without any impact to aviation safety.

The IATA proposal has won support from Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom but the US has not yet taken a position. In July, Senate majority leader John Thune, his fellow Republican senator Marsha Blackburn, and their Democratic colleague Mark Kelly also called for hiking the retirement age to 67.

IATA’s director general, Willie Walsh, a former chief executive officer of British Airways, noted pilot retirement age has evolved over time and was once 55 before being raised to 60 and later 65.

The president of the Air Line Pilots Association, Jason Ambrosi, said the group opposes changes to pilot retirement age and has cited studies that have found greater health risks and a decline in cognitive skills with an increase in age.

“The United States is the global leader in aviation safety, and we should resist any attempts to arbitrarily make changes to the regulatory framework that has helped us achieve this record. That’s why Congress rejected making a change to the pilot retirement age just last year,” the group said in a statement.

Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization sets standards on everything from runway markings to crash investigations, which its 193 member states typically translate into regulatory requirements.