The fraud-friendly phenomenon: Ryanair gets its final judgement, but it’s not over yet! Sandrine Johnson1 The French civil aviation flight staff pension fund (CRPN) has been keeping a watchful eye on low-cost air travel ever since the phenomenon burst onto the scene, to see how it would cope with French social welfare charges, rightly suspecting that airlines would devise sophisticated means to avoid them, notably using a new toolbox: the rules on secondment inside the European Union. The European Union has instituted a legal regime that coordinates member states’ social security legislations in order to avoid impeding workers’ freedom of movement. Upholding the principles of fair cooperation, mutual trust, and legal conformity, a common document issued by the relevant authority of each member state certifies an employee’s affiliation to a social security regime. This document, the “A1” (formerly E101) does not simply attest to the person’s affiliation to a given social security legislation but also allows the presumption that said affiliation is in order. That says enough for certain people, who have taken it to mean whatever they wanted, opening a path that others in the air transport sector or elsewhere have been quick to take. This has laid the ground for a legal debate in France, with all the pitfalls it entails: targeting the A1 certificate without jeopardizing the European Union’s main stance. Ryanair has now received a final judgement on the matter: in its rejection order of 17th October, 2023, La Cour de Cassation (French higher court of appeal), has upheld a May, 2022 ruling by the district appeals court. Ryanair is therefore definitively DOI 10.60559/ijtthl2024-010 1 Deputy CEO of the French civil aviation flight staff pension fund | Caisse de Retraite du Personnel Navigant Professionnel de l’Aéronautique Civile.
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