Over the last 6 months there have been several meetings with Cityjet representatives. It has been the opportunity to establish contacts and review the current working conditions (Remunerations & Allowances, Working Schedules, Annual Leave Agreements, etc.) of Cityjet pilots based in Belgium. We’ve worked also in close cooperation with other European Cityjet pilot groups through ECA Transnational Cityjet Working Group. This has proven to be a great leap forward towards clarity.

Based on what is already in the individual contracts of the Cityjet pilots and benchmarked to all other CLAs within Cityjet at European level we manage to transpose all the existing conditions into a CLA in order to set a clear legal framework applicable to all Cityjet pilots based in Belgium.

As soon as the CLA is finalized, the next step will be to plan a meeting with Cityjet management to present it. BeCA will work in close cooperation with general unions, which are entitled to  officially sign CLAs.

That’s why we asked our Cityjet members to join also general worker unions, creating like in the case of Ryanair a “BeCA / General worker union” partnership.

All this has been possible thanks to the support of our BeCA lawyers but also and above all to the involvement of your Cityjet pilot coordinators who invest their personal time and efforts to achieve this goal: set up the legal framework for the current working conditions for all Cityjet pilots based in Belgium.

In parallel, several BeCA Cityjet members have raised our attention, following their resignations, to letters sent by CityJet regarding the reimbursement of a training bond, the threat to withdraw the amount of the alleged training bond from their salary and the application of a non-compete clause.

BeCA committee is very concerned by the issue and asked our lawyer to write a letter to Cityjet on 18 February  stressing that such a position infringes Belgian labour law on several points and urging them to correct those issues. Our lawyers are currently analysing their response received to consider next steps.

Cityjet is operating four CRJs on behalf of Brussels Airlines and the problem will also be addressed with  Brussels Airlines management.