Some recent improvements that are not far-reaching enough…

When IALPA and ECA set up 3 years ago a working group to assist Ryanair pilots, the first questions that arose were: do Ryanair pilots across Europe want to be represented by a common body? If yes, who would be those representatives and what would be their mission? Now that the group is up and running, new crucial questions about social security taxes are among the issues covered.

Today, the Ryanair Pilot Group represents more than 50% of Ryanair pilots, both employees and self employed, and has elected an interim council. The members of the council are currently not Ryanair pilots, who still fear retaliation from their management. But on top of the initial pilot unionisation target, the exchange of information between pilots of the different bases brought to light a new threat: pilots are now the target of legal and social investigations from local authorities.

How could this happen? If the initial Ryanair pilots received Irish employee contracts, all new entrants are now part of complex fiscal setups. They must indeed create their own management company (usually in England or Ireland) that will sign a contract with a broker (Brookfield, Storm) that will in turn propose their services to Ryanair. If this could be easily accepted 10 years ago, new European regulations (adopted mid-2012 link the payment of social security taxes to the country of your base. But in some States, national authorities go further and want to apply social and fiscal law to Ryanair pilots based in their countries. In several countries (including France, Norway, Italy, Germany), investigations have started. Ryanair pilots and the representatives of national pilot associations are working in close cooperation with the investigators.

In our country, for all the new or renewed contracts, it is straightforward: thanks to this new European regulation, social security taxes have to be paid in Belgium. But for most of the Belgian pilots based in Charleroi – who were among the first Ryanair pilots based in continental Europe and have Irish employee contracts – the situation is less obvious since they will still be covered by the 10-year exemption, i.e. they will remain under their current status until 2022. Recent legal cases concerning this issue and involving cabin attendants were won by Ryanair. This difference among Ryanair pilots is not acceptable and the Ryanair Pilot Group strongly advocates for a harmonisation of the rules. To this end, new investigations have started to clarify the link between Ryanair and the crew based in Charleroi and Brussels: who is the employer (Ryanair, the broker agencies, somebody else)? Are the crew based in Charleroi (or now in Brussels) or in Ireland? What kind of contract do they have (employee, self employed)? We therefore hope that this investigation will finally help respond to these questions to provide all Ryanair pilots and cabin crew with a clear, fair and harmonised status.