SOME BAD news this week for Irish airline CityJet. A French court has fined the Air France-KLM subsidiary €100,000 and ordered it to pay substantial damages for paying its employees under Irish contracts.
In all, the bill in fines and damages comes to about €1 million – a chunky sum for a company hoping to reach break-even this year. The case centred on employee contracts between 2006 and 2008. The court ruled on Tuesday that CityJet had violated French law by paying its staff under Irish contracts despite most of them being hired in France, living there and working mainly out of Paris airports. Taxes on the employees’ salaries were paid in Ireland.
After a complaint from French labour inspectors, the staff were put under French contracts in late 2008. CityJet must now pay €637,380 to the URSSAF, which collects French employer social payment contributions, €10,000 to a pilots union and €10,000 to a union representing flight attendants.The court also awarded €233,450 in total to 27 employees who had filed a civil suit. CityJet maintains that it correctly applied the decree of November 2006 for the relevant bases of flying personnel. A spokeswoman for CityJet told me that it did not “understand this decision and questions the judgment given”. The airline plans to appeal.