The special crew pension system was abolished in December 2011. Since then, the different Pension Ministers have made decisions to implement a system of pensions identical for all: employees, self employed, public servants – except for themselves. But it is obvious that, for some professions that are too demanding, not all workers will be able to exercise it until the age of 65 (or 66 from 2025 and 67 from 2030).

By Christophe Verleye, BeCA Executive Secretary

When a BeCA delegation visited the ministry of Pensions in spring 2016, we could easily convince them that it was not conceivable that all pilots would be able to fly until 65. The 3 major problems with the new pension system were emphasized: need to perform to high standards every day including during proficiency checks every 6 months; difference between unfit to fly and unfit to work; and huge drop in income and no payment of the group insurance if retiring before the legal age of pension.

Since the reform of the pension system, ground staff unions have been asking an exemption for workers with a heavy job (“zwaar beroep/métier lourd”). Currently they have no right to an early retirement but they could benefit from the formerly known system of “brugpensioen/prépension”, known today as “stelsel van werkloosheid met bedrijfstoeslag/chômage avec complément d’entreprise”: you receive unemployment benefits from the state and your former employer pays you a monthly compensation bonus. Since you are unemployed, you must remain available on the labour market and accept any suitable job or professional training. This also implies you must live in Belgium and if you have another activity with revenues, they will be deducted from your unemployment benefits. And since you are not retired, you cannot receive the payment of your group insurance.

The National Pension Committee, which includes representatives of the government, the employers and the unions, investigates the exemption for workers with a heavy job. A first agreement has been reached last year, with the definitions of 4 objective criteria, which would lead to the recognition as a heavy job: environmental and physical strains, work organisation, safety risks and psychosocial and emotional strain.

According to those criteria, it is obvious that flight crews have a heavy job: our working environment (noise, pressurization, dry air, radiations) has a physical impact on our body, we have irregular working patterns, flying exposes us to some risks including possible contagion by passengers and no doubt we have a stressful and demanding job. But is the recognition as a heavy job the solution we want to solve our pension issue?

Workers with a heavy job would be able to retire after a shorter career with the same pension allowance or after the same career with a higher pension allowance. But there is still no agreement on the minimum age and career length criteria. The major issue will be the financing of the new system. The government will have a (quite limited) budget, but the list of heavy jobs presented by the unions will probably be long: based on the current 4 criteria, almost all jobs could be considered as heavy jobs! Which will simply undermine the system and make it not viable!

Knowing that industry agreements already allow derogations from the general pension and unemployment systems, it becomes obvious that the solution will have to come from the aviation sector itself. The biggest challenge will be to find the way to finance it.