The government did something right

I just received an operational bulletin from work that was a pleasure to read. Even more, it was about something the government did. How rare is that???

The 1st Class medical is required for those who are exercising the privileges of a Airline Transport Pilot certificate. That basically means anyone who is a Captain or Relief Officer at an airline. World uses all of it’s First Officers on the MD-11 as Relief Officers, so I’ve been required to have a valid 1st Class medical my whole time at World (plus the time I was a Captain at Comair).

The FAA just extended the duration of validity for two of its three classes of medical. The 1st Class medical is one of them. They used to be valid for 6 months. Now, for pilots under 40 (as of the date of examination), they’re valid for 12 months. That will save me at least 6 trips to the FAA doctor between now and the time I turn 40!

The FAA also extended the 3rd class medical (required for private pilots) for those under age 40 from three years to five years.

While I say that government did something good, they did reduce the burden of their (involuntarily imposed) regulations on some people and I do view that as a good thing in this case. I say “in this case” because it’s not at the real or potential expense of any other people. Having said that, they’ve introduced an additional type of age discrimination into the process which I don’t think is a good thing.

The bigger age discrimination issue that the FAA recently dealt with was the retirement age. Unlike this age discrimination rule, the existence of the mandatory retirement age, and the recent change in it, significantly affects not only the people who are forced to retire based on age, but also everyone else in the industry. So that’s a doubly bad form of age discrimination.

Age discrimination aside, at least the FAA reduced the unnecessary burden of regulation on some people. Kudos to them for that.

V-