Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to the pension bill to correct an injustice. I want to thank my cosponsors, Senators Specter, Feinstein, Salazar, and Inouye, for working with me on this amendment. I also want to thank the cosponsors of my stand-alone bill S. 685, which include Senators Isakson, Kennedy, Harkin, Obama, Durbin, Salazar, and Feinstein.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires commercial airline pilots to retire when they reach the age of 60. Pilots are therefore denied the maximum pension benefit administered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) because they are required to retire before the age of 65. This significant reduction in benefits puts pilots in a difficult position. With drastically reduced pensions and a prohibition on reentering the piloting profession because of age, many pilots are subjected to undue hardship. For plans terminated in 2005, the maximum benefit for someone that retires at 65 is $45,614 a year. For those who retire at 60, the maximum is $29,649.
While I believe that Congress needs to address the issue of underfunded pension plans, I believe that it is also important for us to address this inequity. We must adopt this amendment to assist pilots whose companies have been or will be unable to continue their defined benefit pension plans. My amendment will slightly alter Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to require the PBGC to take into account the fact that pilots are required to retire at the age of 60 when calculating their benefits.
Mr. President, if pilots want to work beyond the age 60, they must request a waiver from the FAA. It is my understanding that the FAA does not grant many of these waivers, and I have even heard from some pilots that the FAA has never granted these waivers. Therefore, most of the pilots, if not all, do not receive the maximum pension guarantee because they are forced to retire at age 60. Pilots already lose substantial amounts of their promised pensions when the PBGC takes over their pension plans, but this needless penalty makes the pension cuts even harder to adjust to after a termination.
This amendment would benefit US Airways and United Airlines pilots in addition to other legacy carriers whose pensions were absorbed by the PBGC. In my home state of Hawaii, I have 91 United and US Airways pilots in the Air Line Pilots Association data base. I also have 305 active or retired Aloha Airlines pilots in Hawaii. Aloha Airlines recently filed to terminate its pension plan. Other states, such as North Carolina and Virginia have 1,064 and 1,014 United and US Airways pilots respectively. As I look at the financial difficulties confronting Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines, I am troubled by the prospect of even more pilots losing their plans and being subjected to this unfair penalty.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support from the Air Line Pilots Association be included in the Record. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment so that pilots are not unfairly penalized for having to retire early by the FAA. Thank you Mr. President.
