Originally Posted by
ph-sbe
The judgement which is being appealed says:
Which, loosely translated, says that the court does not buy RYR's argument that the decision to close EHV was based for economic reasons. During the appeals proceedings, RYR will have every opportunity to make that point again. Yes, the initial court threw out RYR's argument, but that does not mean that the appeals court will do the same. In civil court proceedings, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, in this case the air crew. RYR only has to establish that they closed EHV for economic reasons and the plaintiff needs to prove retaliation. My point is that RYR's arguments that they decided to close EHV for economic reasons have only gotten better. Does that mean they will win? Maybe not, as the courts in .nl generally are heavily favorited towards the employee. I'm just saying that this /could/ have an effect on the proceedings.
Problem is (for Ryanair) that the closure isn't now, but was some time ago.
They can't come with current economic circumstances to defend a closure of Eindhoven at the time they closed it.
At that time, it was still economic to fly to and from EHV, especially seeing they continued to do so, just with other crew (not based there).