Pension

On 16 May 2018, the BeCA Pension Working Group met with Minister Bacquelaine in order to try and find a solution to the pilot pension. As you know, we have been asking for the setting up of a special pilot system like we had before 2011.

At the meeting, Mr Bacquelaine’s cabinet explained the government is canceling all special pension sys- tems. This leaves us with one option: being consid- ered as heavy profession. The minister seemed quite willing to do so. The next question will be what fac- tor will our profession be assigned (max. is 1.15 per year of service). In this case, we would be allowed to retire after 40 years of work instead of 45.

This solution is not our ideal one, as you know. We therefore need to go further. Brussels Airlines actively supports the unions on that matter to try and get something more. We’ll keep you updated!

Per Diem – Royal Decree

At the end of September, we learnt that Minister Maggie de Block submitted to the National Labour Council a proposal for a new Royal Decree (RD) on allowances paid to crew members. Those allowanc- es would not be considered as an income but as a reimbursement of costs associated with the employ- er, allowing airlines not to pay any social security charges on those allowances. This proposal was clearly promoted by Brussels Airlines, bypassing the Joint Committee, i.e. the unions, BeCA and other airlines. If passed, this RD will result in net loss of money for many crew members and is written to fit only one airline in Belgium. We are therefore fight- ing against it and are in close contact with unions to ensure they challenge it at the Joint Committee and towards other airlines. Keep you posted!

VAT Last Call!

This is the last call for pilots who want to board the VAT reimbursement airplane! Please send your request to bart.smet@beca.be.

Belgocontrol failure, 20 July 2018

A new incident leading once again to a “Clear the sky” procedure activation happened on 29 July 2018 in Belgocontrol. The airport was closed for 1.5 hours.

Apparently a software update caused a memory buffer to overload which rendered the system so slow that it became unworkable. A decision was made to perform a system reset and reinstall the previous version. In the meantime the affected module reportedly has been bypassed.

Immediately after the event, BeCA sent a letter to Belgocontrol CEO expressing our concerns about possible systemic causes behind this (and previous) occurrence(s). As professional users of the Belgian airspace BeCA members are directly affected by an airspace closure and want to know the actual reasons for such a decision. Even more important than knowing what happened and why, they want to be assured that Belgocontrol’s infrastructure (soft-/hardware) and staff are resilient to cope with future occurrences, inherent to a complex system.

Loss of licence

BeCA Medical Working Group has been addressing a couple of issues on Loss of Licence (LoL) insurances:

Temporary Loss of Licence:

Over the last years, the ratio Temporary LoL vs. Definitive LoL has drastically increased. We real- ised that some members are not correctly insured, for two main reasons:

• Over/underinsurance created by cumulated temporary coverages: in addition to insur- ance provided by their airline, many mem- bers get a private insurance – which is very good as, in most cases, the airline insurance is not enough to cover your needed income.

• Lack of update: a lot of pilots being trans- ferred to another company or getting pro- moted do not update their insured value.

The total coverage cannot exceed 100% of your monthly income, and shouldn’t be lower.

Permanent Loss of Licence:

Due to EASA Part-MED, the status of “permanent unfit-to-fly” (definitief ongeschikt/inapte définitif) disappeared from the law. The EU considers rap- id medical progress might allow a pilot to recover their licence after a few years.

Thus, nor APPN nor any other insurer can consid- er that the disability is permanent which can cause problems for out payment of permanent lump sum. BeCA has met with APPN, the ministry & BCAA. In several European countries, they still deliver “per- manent unfit-to-fly” certificates. We requested a meeting with the medical expertise department of the BCAA to push for this potential solution.