Brussels, 19/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - Remuneration paid to airline pilots during their annual leave must include a premium for time spent flying in addition to their basic salary and all other components of remuneration regarding their personal and professional status (e.g. premiums for qualifications, rank or seniority). Time spent flying is said to be “intrinsically linked to the performance of their tasks”. By contrast, the supplementary payment, which is intended to cover costs connected with the time spent away from the pilots' air base, does not form part of their normal remuneration and therefore need not be taken into account.
This, in essence, was the response given, on 15 September, by the EU Court of Justice to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in its Judgement C-155/10. The UK court, before which the case had been brought, had called on the EU Court of Justice to interpret European Union law on working hours (Directives 93/104/EC and 2003/88/EC, and the European agreement on working hours in civil aviation annexed to Directive 2000/79/EC), in order to settle the case of several British Airways pilots who challenged the calculation made by their airline of the amount to which they were entitled as annual leave. In order to calculate their remuneration, the company wanted to take into account only one of three components that make up the pilots' overall remuneration - their basic salary, without taking into account the premium for time spent flying and that for time spent outside the base.
In its ruling, the Court notes that “any inconvenient aspect which is intrinsically linked to the performance of the tasks which the worker is required to carry out under his contract of employment and in respect of which a monetary amount is provided which is included in the calculation of the worker's total remuneration (…) must necessarily be taken into account for the purposes of the amount to which the worker is entitled during his annual leave”. Such is the case for airline pilots, with regard to the time spent flying and the premium attached to that time. By contrast, the costs connected with the time that pilots have to spend away from base are considered by the Court as “occasional or ancillary costs” and any compensation paid to cover such costs, albeit part of their overall remuneration, “need not be taken into account in the calculation of the payment to be made during annual leave”. (FG/transl.jl)