Man, the issue is FAA ATC rules indicate that you have to be under 31 years of age and you must retire at age 56. Add on top of that a requirement of four years of schooling and if you don’t make the choice to be part of ATC by age 27, you just are never going to be one.
I’m pretty sure there’s reasons behind the mandatory retirement age. But dang, it’s hard convincing anyone under 30 that they should pick up a pretty stressful job.
Under 31, retire by 56 is specifically due to the pension requirements. It’s to make sure anyone who is hired is eligible for it when they have to retire. It requires 25 years of service.
I haven’t seen anything specifically denoting why you have to retire by age 56 but it’s implied that it’s just because younger people tend to have faster reaction times and are better at multitasking, etc.
I remember seeing an article years ago around 2000-2002 era. They claimed that the 56 retirement age was because of heart attacks and other stress/age related medical issues. Basically you don’t want Lesley Neilson having a heart attack while quipping jokes at you over the air.
Man, the issue is FAA ATC rules indicate that you have to be under 31 years of age and you must retire at age 56. Add on top of that a requirement of four years of schooling and if you don’t make the choice to be part of ATC by age 27, you just are never going to be one.
I’m pretty sure there’s reasons behind the mandatory retirement age. But dang, it’s hard convincing anyone under 30 that they should pick up a pretty stressful job.
Under 31, retire by 56 is specifically due to the pension requirements. It’s to make sure anyone who is hired is eligible for it when they have to retire. It requires 25 years of service.
I haven’t seen anything specifically denoting why you have to retire by age 56 but it’s implied that it’s just because younger people tend to have faster reaction times and are better at multitasking, etc.
I remember seeing an article years ago around 2000-2002 era. They claimed that the 56 retirement age was because of heart attacks and other stress/age related medical issues. Basically you don’t want Lesley Neilson having a heart attack while quipping jokes at you over the air.