the grotesque situation of 14 Ryanair employees at Bordeaux airport

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Since November 2024, Ryanair has cleared the floor of Bordeaux airport. But the company has left behind 14 employeeswho today are paid to do nothing.

They did not accept the transfer proposed by Ryanair to one of its other bases, in France or abroad. But the company, which is supposed to fire them, plays dead.

How did they get there?

Ryanair announced in May the closure of its base in Bordeaux in November, blaming the increase in royalties requested by the airport. This commercial dispute has jeopardized the employment of the 120 employees based at Mérignac airport.

Malta Air, the subsidiary which supplies Ryanair’s cabin crew, finally offered them a relocation to ” less expensive bases located elsewhere in the group’s vast network across Europe”, as justified by Jason McGuinness, the company’s commercial director.

When the base closed in November, most employees accepted. “If they didn’t do it, the compensation was economic dismissal,” explains Bordeaux news Damien Mourgues, delegate to the National Union of Commercial Flight Personnel (SNPMC-FO) at Malta Air.

He is one of the 14 employees who refused the company’s conditions.

“Far from being a vacation”

If he stayed, it is because his family and his life are based here, in Bordeaux. “If I left, my wife would lose her job,” explains the union representative. “Today, we are paid to do nothing. On our schedule it is marked “off” and I have not heard from my HR manager for over a month. »

However, it is “far from being a vacation”: in addition to the shortfall in salary (returned to the minimum wage with the elimination of bonuses), employees are worried about not finding work in an airline based in Mérignac airport.

And for them, several points are stuck regarding the departure of the airline.

No social plan

Damien Mourgues first explains that Ryanair should have put in place a job protection plan. Given that more than ten employees refused their transfer, they “should be subject to a collective dismissal procedure”.

This is also what was affirmed, in November, by the judge before whom Malta Air was assigned by employees. He then ordered the company to comply with its legal obligations. But since then, nothing has changed.

For Damien Mourgues, this absence of a social plan is linked to the fact that Ryanair “in reality did not leave for economic reasons, but for a commercial dispute”.

“We were put in the closet”

Today, the 14 employees remain pending. Their room for maneuver is slim. On the judicial side, they will be able to take note of the termination of their employment contract – given that their employer does not give them work, while they are still under contract.

They could also negotiate a transactional agreement with the company, but “she does not seem willing to pay more than what is strictly necessary,” explains Damien Mourgues. “We were put in the closet. Malta Air prefers to continue doing nothing, hoping that we will leave little by little,” says the union delegate.

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