LOL...

Reminds me of the story about the tire company the French relentlessly pursued to save an ailing French tire plant. Company CEO looked at the French minister and asked him why anyone would be stupid enough to actually do business in France?

Everyone including the French say France is a difficult country to do business in.

A label one can use in regard to Google and Apple (legal but dubious) low tax payments in countries where they have operations.

At last! Someone or something that stands up to the Ryanair bully machine. Well done the French.

Btw, what became of the investigation into the allegation that Ryanair were cheating on their Eurocontrol charges by falsifying their MTOW figures?

In the early to mid 90's, somehow when I wasn't looking I became the Xhief Pilot of Baltic International Airlines...(now Air Baltic)...

Our 2 steady routes were Riga/Frankfurt and Riga/Gatwick 7 days a week...

We operated a TU-134 and 2 ex-AA 727-100's...An issue came up, and I don't know what it was, but we could fly to Gatwick with the Tu-134, and one of the Boeings....no problem...but if the other Boeing ever reared her head in the UK, she would be siezed...

Not sure I understand this one...if my company owes you money, what does it matter which A/C you block....?

Creative arrangements are not unknown when it comes to aircraft ownership. Purchased in one name, leased out by a nominee company registered in a tax haven to another company which temporarily registers it in another jurisdiction and subsequently charters it to a third party etc etc.

Air France fined over CityJet Irish contracts - The Local

Perhaps the staff will get a bit of compensation too.....

IIRC legally the airport operator can only detain the airframe (lien) that accrued the specific debt. Usually after all other efforts had been exhausted. Not only that but the aircraft can be detained for a debt accrued by a previous owner. So Bloggs air who operated the aircraft and went bust, their debts can still be chased by placing a lien on one of their airframes with a new operator.

€225K + 4 aircraft
Say, €30M per aircraft. (Mind, they got em cheap)
Damn! That's a good €120M gone. Heads are gonna role.

Hold your horses guys!
This what the prosecutors ask for. There is NO judgement yet!
A couple of journo's need to learn French instead of using online translators and making up stories.

Move along, nothing to see here.
 

:ok:

sarah737 is absolutely right. Many people on PPRuNe are quick to complain about sloppy journalism (often justifiably) but at the same time are being very credulous here. Do you really imagine that it wouldn't be making headlines if Ryanair had four aircraft confiscated?

The prosecutor has made the deliberately headline-grabbing argument that the assets used in the commission of the alleged crime should be confiscated (i.e. 4 aircraft). She gets her headlines - you folks are seeing to that. In fact the actual judgement isn't due until September.

Now I appreciate that everyone wants to pile in at the slightest excuse and have another dig at Ryanair, but There Is No Confiscation Of Aircraft going on here, nor is there any prospect that the court will ultimately do so.

(Saitek: you might like to change the very misleading headline of this thread. Just because some wannabee journalism site can't even attain the normal accuracy standards of the profession :E doesn't mean their mistake has to be perpetuated here.)

Only in France.

Sounds like a classic case of the French unions not linking someone doing business under their nose without paying their dues. So much for reform of the French labour market.

Clearer explanations
 

Alright, as I've been following the case, I'll make things clearer for everyone:

- Regarding the confiscation of 4 planes, the prosecutor wants to confiscate the value equivalent to 4 planes, not the 4 planes themselves as said by La Tribune. The reason why the prosecutor demanded the value is simple: due to the leasing mechanism used by Ryanair, the plane doesn't belong to Ryanair Ltd but to a company located in a tax haven and owned by Ryanair Holding Plc. As there were too many ways to block a seizure legally, the prosecutor wanted the equivalent of 4 planes PLUS 225 000 which is the max you can demand for hidden work in France legally speaking.

- Is it legally possible ? As a matter of fact, it is since French justice has already seized a Sky Europe plane before.

- Is it yet another French union trial? Not at all. Unions but also politicians have recently stood up against bad practices, hidden work, tax evasion from airlines - whether they are national or low-cost. The French transport secretary almost admitted in a press conference that he wanted Ryanair's head. This trial, even it's going to drag on and on, is symbolic for a lot of parties which have grown fed up with FR's competition or practices (not judging, just saying). People (not just union) seem to want an exemplary sentence because Ryanair flew off the handle at Marseille and was held responsible for Angouleme's failure and got out of it blue handed from some representatives' point of view (such is the case of Charente Senator from the majority who's still battling against the company).


- easyJet was nailed before but moved on... France is a hard country to make business in, true story. However easyJet which was nailed for the same reason, changed its practices and is now having better results than Air France in Nice... Boo ya :) Proof is that, pretty much like in every foreign country you do business in, you have to understand how things go down or else you'll just fail. Ryanair tried to force things (like it usually does) and now is the backlash...

All Ryanair flights for the winter 2013-14 season already released for sale have been taken off sale again!!! Anybody know why or when they will be back on again???

I see Willie Walsh has tipped his hand to show he would prefer to see Ryanair getting into bed with Aer Lingus rather than letting the unmentionable one in.

Shorrick

I suspect the organisation being referred to is the "Office central de lutte contre le travail illegal" (my underlining)). I'm not quite sure why the word "legal" crept into it's name in the English language article; mischief? A typo? A poor translation from French :sad:? ... Never mind, I guess it appeals to the Mail and Telegraph reading expats.....

Edited to add an informative link :rolleyes:

Travail illégal (OCLTI)

To Roman.Observer:


- legally possible: the Sky Europe B737 had been blocked, not seized, by Aéroports de Paris, and it was because of unpaid airport charges. This reason is valid and legal in almost any country in Europe. By the way, Eurocontrol has the legal possibility to do same if there are unpaid route charges.

- union trial / easyJet: the law that French "Office Central de Lutte contre le Travail Illegal" is not specifically French but an EU regulation. It states that when workers are based in a country X for more than some months (6? but I am not sure and no time to check), the social charges and taxes regarding such workers have to be paid in country X, whichever the country of the employer is. Ryanair was brought to the Court because it did not pay the charges/taxes in France but claimed to do so in Ireland - which by the way is not even correct as the "independent" pilots have to pay their charges themselves.

Folks,
A very funny occurrence at EGLL years ago, and, as it happened, a B727.
A writ to detain the "vessel" had been granted to the creditor, under a very old maritime law, to satisfy a debt --- that required that the writ had to be "nailed to the foremast" to be properly executed.
After some head scratching, and fortunately no hammer rand nails, the writ was deemed to duly executed by taping it to the nose wheel leg.

I've spent enough time experiencing the Ryanair way of doing things to know that it's a money making machine rather than a cuddly toy. I also know that the company loves Captcha.

I know that Ryanair has in the past used Captcha to mention its money making ancillary products - e.g. booking hotels or phone call cards - nothing really that wrong with a bit of suggestive marketing.

I'm finding however that having to type in slogans about how Mastercard feeds young children who would otherwise go hungry in some of the poorest parts of the world, just to get a price for a flight rather cringe-worthy. I doubt that Mastercard has a particularly large impact on the world's poorest - they are after all just a credit card brand which seeks to make a profit. It all has echoes of being told to repeat corporate propaganda, while using the image of the world's most needy and vulnerable as a way of inducing people to spend in a way that increases profits. At the very least, this gives me a rather negative and cynical image of Mastercard.

Anyone else share this opinion ?