After 36 years in the cockpit, I was just one year from retirement when my airline told me I’d be retraining on the Airbus A350 — the most advanced passenger jet in the sky.
I’d spent decades mastering the Boeing 767. The Airbus was a completely different language. And at 64, I’d never flown one.
The whispers started:
“Even younger pilots struggle.”
“At your age, it’s too much.”
Some quietly bet I wouldn’t make it through.
Training was a mountain: 7,000 pages of manuals, endless simulator hours, and brutal exams. It was the hardest program of my career.
And I passed. Not because it was easy, but because capability doesn’t vanish with age — and the mind can stay as sharp at 64 as it was at 34.
That year taught me this: age isn’t an expiration date for learning, adapting, or excelling. Sometimes, the last stretch of your runway is when you prove you were flying at your best all along.