## Facts

- Western Air Lines required its flight engineers to retire at age 60 and denied reassignment to flight engineer positions for pilots who reached age 60.
- Flight engineers are cockpit crew members who ordinarily do not operate flight controls unless both the pilot and copilot are incapacitated.
- Federal Aviation Administration rules barred anyone from serving as a pilot or copilot after age 60, but imposed no age limit on flight engineers.
- Affected employees sued under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which generally forbids mandatory retirement before age 70 subject to a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) exception.
- Western asserted that age 60 was a BFOQ for flight engineers, claiming the limit was reasonably necessary to safe airline operations.
- The parties presented extensive, conflicting expert testimony on age-related decline and whether individualized medical testing could reliably identify disqualifying conditions.

## Issues

1. How narrowly must the ADEA’s § 4(f)(1) BFOQ exception be construed, including in safety-sensitive industries?
2. Whether Western proved that mandatory retirement at age 60 was a BFOQ reasonably necessary to the safe operation of its business for flight engineers.
3. Whether the trial court’s BFOQ jury instructions correctly stated the governing legal standard and the proper treatment of employer safety judgments.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for the employees.
- The Court held the ADEA’s BFOQ defense is an “extremely narrow” exception to the statute’s general prohibition on age discrimination.
- The Court approved the jury instruction requiring Western to prove both (1) that individualized evaluation of flight engineers over 60 was highly impractical and (2) that some over-60 engineers posed safety risks not ascertainable by means other than age.
- The Court rejected treating the FAA’s age-60 rule for pilots as a substitute justification for an age-60 rule for flight engineers, who were not subject to the FAA age limit.
- Western failed to carry its burden that the age-60 rule for flight engineers was reasonably necessary to safe operations.

## Legal Principles

- The ADEA’s BFOQ exception in § 4(f)(1) is construed narrowly; the employer bears a heavy burden to justify an age-based qualification.
- For safety-based BFOQ claims, the employer must show the age limit is reasonably necessary to the normal operation (the “essence”) of the business, not merely convenient or prudent.
- A blanket age rule requires proof that individualized assessment is highly impractical and that age serves as a proxy for risks not reliably detectable through feasible testing.
- The existence of a safety regulation imposing an age ceiling for one position (pilots/copilots) does not automatically establish a BFOQ for a different position (flight engineers) lacking that regulatory mandate.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Western’s age-60 mandatory retirement policy for flight engineers violated the ADEA because Western did not prove, under the statute’s narrowly construed BFOQ exception, that the age cutoff was reasonably necessary to safe airline operations or that individualized medical screening could not practicably address the relevant safety risks.


W. Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell, 472 U.S. 400 (1985)