The Farmington man retired from Southwest Airlines in December, forced out by a federal rule that says airline and other commercial pilots must quit flying when they reach 60.
Southwest doesn't give pensions to retirees, and Zundel's Air Force pension isn't big enough. So Zundel went to work last week teaching mathematics at Salt Lake Community College. And he's looking for flying jobs with overseas airlines that are exempt from the age-60 rule.
"From the day I got out of the military 15 years ago and started flying commercially, I never could understand it. It's unconstitutional," Zundel said. "I want to fly but the law says I cannot do that."
But the 47-year-old federal rule may soon go the way of biplanes and leather aviator goggles. U.S. airline pilots would be allowed to fly until age 65 under regulations proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, as long as at least one member of a flight crew was younger than 60.
"It's an act of unjustifiable age discrimination," said Robert Lavender, a 56-year-old Federal Express pilot who lives in Provo. "It's a fairness argument. If a person is healthy enough, he should be able to fly."
Although the plan would give pilots approaching retirement an extra five years to fly, it won't help Zundel because the FAA has decided the change will not be retroactive. And it has aroused resistance from an unlikely opponent - pilots themselves.
For safety and seniority reasons, the Air Line Pilots Association since 1980 has opposed liberalizing the age rule. These pilots say the financial plight of older aviators who must work at other jobs beyond 60 doesn't offset the rigors of flying or the chance that an elderly pilot might suffer a medical emergency such as a heart attack.
"I have sympathy for pilots who need to work. But I don't feel sorry for their lack of planning and I don't want them balancing their checkbooks on my back," said Mike Dunn, a 50-year-old Delta pilot living in Salt Lake City.
While ALPA opposes changing the retirement rule, the airline industry is sitting on the fence. The Air Transportation Association of America, which represents most big airlines and cargo carriers, is unable to reach a common view.
"If the collective group has divergent opinions, ATA remains neutral," spokesman David Castelveter said.
Privately, many carriers worry about the added cost of older pilots, whose pay and pension benefits would continue to grow if they worked another five years. Other airlines want to hold onto their senior pilots, Still other carriers don't want to take public positions that may be at odds with their unions.
"Delta will adhere to the policy that the FAA recommends," spokesman Anthony Black said.
The proposal to extend the age limit to 65, announced in January by FAA administrator Marion Blakey, matches a rule adopted in November by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations group that develops international standards for aviation safety. Authorities in Europe also recently raised the retirement age to 65.
The FAA will formally propose the rule later this year for a period of public comment and then publish a final rule, possibly two years later.
The change could revamp the plans of thousands of pilots approaching mandatory retirement, ease the growing shortage of pilots and impact pension costs, which have pushed some airlines to eliminate their programs and turn them over to the federal government.
"Medically speaking, there are no scientific studies to say, 'Don't do this.' In fact, as we'd all agree, medical science is in the place where we are all living longer and healthier. And that includes the cockpit," the FAA's Blakey said in a speech at the National Press Club in January.
Blakey, who was chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board before becoming the FAA administrator, said the average lifespan in the U.S. was 69.5 years back in 1959, when the age-60 rule was adopted. Today, it's more than 77, she said.
Supporting Blakey is the Civil Aviation Medical Association, which represents aviation medical examiners in 60 countries.
"I was in the meeting when they established the retirement rule," said Jim Harris, executive vice president of the association and former head of medical education for the FAA. "This was not a medical decision. This was an operational decision that it would be age 60.
"From an operational standpoint, it has no validity. You could choose 70 or 75. But they chose 60," Harris said.
In her remarks at the National Press Club, Blakey said the reasons the FAA set mandatory retirement where it did were murky. She said several airlines during the 1950s attempted to force older pilots to retire. When they did, the pilots union took legal action. Arbitrators ruled for the pilots each time, she said.
In 1958 and 1959, pilots represented by ALPA filed grievances against three airlines, including American Airlines, which had used medical and safety arguments to support their view that they had the right to set mandatory retirements at age 60. Even though arbitrators rejected the arguments, American refused to reinstate the pilots that had taken action against the airline.
Despite a 21-day strike by ALPA against American, the airline continued to refuse to rehire the pilots.
In February 1959, C.R. Smith, American's chairman, sought help from then-FAA administrator Pete Quesada.
The agency issued a notice of proposed rule-making four months later. The two men were longtime friends, according to the Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association.
"American Airlines prevailed on the FAA for a rule. Perhaps it was the strike that occurred. Maybe it was just a move to get beyond the issue," Blakey said.
Whatever the reason, the age-60 rule was quickly adopted without public hearings.
"In what today would be considered warp speed - less than nine months - it became the law of the land," Blakey said.
Although the FAA has had a change of heart, a group of airline, labor and medical experts it set up in September to recommend whether the U.S. should adopt the international standard did not reach a consensus.
Some members said the international standard didn't address safety issues and didn't provide a level of safety that was equivalent to the FAA standard.
ALPA has had a change of heart, too. For two decades, it opposed the age rule. But as time passed, the airline industry became comfortable with it. Labor contracts and seniority rights began to conform to the rule. In 1980, the union's board of directors voted to support mandatory retirement at 60.
Now it wants the rule kept intact, despite an increasingly divided membership that has been hurt in the past five years by layoffs and pay and benefits cuts that have put financial pressure on pilots of all ages and experience levels, ALPA says.
"We don't believe that you change the FAA regulation without hard science that shows the risk [to passengers and flight crews] remains the same, or is less," spokesman Pete Janhunen said.
Despite its public position, a rift has opened within the 60,000-member pilots union. Older pilots, especially those who work for carriers that have terminated their pension programs, want the age limit increased in order to save money for retirement.
Younger pilots keen to gain seniority support the current rule. Seniority determines which pilots fly the best aircraft and routes, which pilots are upgraded to captain, how much someone earns and who gets furloughed first if layoffs are ordered.
A survey three years ago revealed that 56 percent of ALPA's members support the age-60 limit and that age played a role in the outcome.
But Janhunen said the results also showed some older pilots don't want the limit increased, while some younger pilots favor the change.
"It's all about seniority. In order for co-pilots to move into the left seat, captains have to retire and move on. If the FAA moves the retirement age to 65, it's going to delay my arrival in the left seat," said Dunn, one of 6,000 Delta pilots who have taken big pay cuts and lost their pensions since the airline filed for bankruptcy in September 2005.
pbeebe@sltrib.com
