Brussels, 13/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - The collective agreement in force in Germany which forces airline pilots to retire at 60 constitutes discrimination on grounds of age - a ban, pure and simple, on piloting an aircraft after that age goes beyond that which is necessary to ensure air traffic safety.
That, in short, is the judgment handed down by the Court of Justice of the EU on Tuesday 13 September in case C-447/09. The Court was responding to the German Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht) which had asked whether a collective agreement in place within German airline Lufthansa, which, with the aim of ensuring air traffic safety, provides for the automatic termination of the contracts of pilots who have reached the age of 60, complies with Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation.
In its ruling, the Court states, firstly, that collective agreements entered into with the social partners, just like the national laws of the member states, must respect the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of age, recognised in EU law. It states that, while the German collective agreement allows pilots to exercise their profession only to the age of 60 in pursuit of the objective of guaranteeing the safety of passengers, persons in areas over which aircraft fly and the safety and health of pilots themselves, national and international rules allow pilots to continue to work until the age of 65, subject to certain conditions. Consequently, the prohibition on piloting after that age, provided for by the collective agreement, “is not a necessary measure for the protection of public health and security” as provided for in the directive.
The Court, moreover, states that possessing particular physical capabilities “may be considered as a genuine and determining occupational requirement for acting as an airline pilot” and that the possession of such capabilities is “related to age”. As that requirement seeks to guarantee air traffic safety, it pursues a legitimate objective which may justify a difference in treatment on grounds of age. However, it is “only in very limited circumstances” that such a difference in treatment may be justified, the Court adds, noting that, in that regard, “the international and German authorities consider that, until the age of 65, pilots have the physical capabilities to act as a pilot, even if, between 60 and 65, they may do so only as a member of a crew in which the other pilots are younger than 60”. On that basis, the clause in the German collective agreement which sets 60 as “the age-limit from which airline pilots are considered as no longer possessing the physical capabilities to carry out their occupational activity” may be deemed to be contrary to the directive. In conclusion, the Court says that air traffic safety does not constitute a “legitimate objective” within the meaning of the directive that can be used to justify discrimination based on age, as it is not an objective related to employment, labour market or vocational training policy. (F.G./transl.rt)