The case is not over yet. The Spanish airline Volotea, condemned Monday for “hidden work” by the judicial court of Bordeaux for having profited, will challenge this decision on appeal, announced the company Tuesday.
Volotea estimates in a press release “to have respected European and French laws for the temporary secondment of its employees during the launch of the launch of the Bordeaux base in 2013”. “The company does not agree with the judgment of the Court of Bordeaux and will appeal,” she adds.
Spanish pilots were working in Bordeaux
On Monday, the Bordeaux court sentenced the Spanish company to a fine of 200,000 euros, half with a suspended sentence, for “hidden work”, considering that Volotea had paid pilots in Spain who actually worked in Bordeaux.
The company was accused of having paid in Barcelona, between 2013 and 2017, 18 pilots, mostly Spanish, while they were based at Bordeaux-Mérignac airport, thus avoiding the payment in France of significant salaries and related social contributions. She would have achieved a saving of 630,000 euros over the period thanks to this process, calculated the court.
The court had also ordered Volotea to pay 300,843 euros in material damage and 5,000 euros in non-pecuniary damage to the Civil Aeronautical Flight Staff Pension Fund (CRPN), 7,500 euros to the National Union of Airline Pilots for non-pecuniary damage. (SNPL), and 5,000 euros to the Union for the recovery of social security contributions and family allowances (Urssaf) of Aquitaine and three pilots of the low-cost company, made a civil party.
European legislation authorizes the practice of secondment from work, but on a temporary basis. New European directives concerning posted workers were adopted in 2018, enshrining the principle of equal treatment.