German police raid Ryanair crew rooms;

Verdacht auf Scheinselbstständigkeit: Razzien auf Flughäfen bei Ryanair - heute-Nachrichten

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Luftverkehr: Razzia an Flughäfen: Ermittlungen gegen Ryanair-Partner - FOCUS Online

Not only crew rooms, they knocked also at some pilots homes and confiscated computers, laptops and documents. It seems like the pilots are f....d up.

They are going at this from the wrong angle: they are after the junkies and not the drug sellers. It is not a recent problem, but has been festering for 16 years.

Objection, sure they are going against the junkies. But also the are on the hunt for the "medium sized" dealers. It takes some time to get the Irish version of "Frank Lucas" ;)

I posted that already earlier in this thread somewhere. The times you can try to do this things are over. If not you are in danger of police or more tax department actions.

Mainland Europe does not "buy" all this so called self employment schemes anymore that various operators are using(my previous outfit used that with UK and Irish pilots, my new one as well - I always steered well clear of that).

My suggestions - go for a direct (RYR) contract and have a good nights sleep. Tax evasion is a crime(and flying for only 1 operator is not an independent, it is being an employee. Sure you can add some lessons on lights or try to fly in your off days for an other operator, but RYR does not like that either for logical reasons). Always was. But this days it is threated more serious than in the old days.

I'm 100% sure all the German contractors didn't want a direct Ryanair contract :D
MOL is the one to blame, not the pilots.

Why is that ExDubai?

I prefer to have my basic salary paid while on TR and not been sent around the entire network to fill the gaps.

Plus of course(but not my prime objective I must admit) having a very clear deal with the company and tax offices can not make any problems.

Again - if you want to make good money go to China, the European contracts are more for family men like myself. The Chinese deals work very fine on a non paying tax deal up till now(of course the company pays chinese tax for you ;-) ).

EDIT: I must add, I am not Germany based, flying out of a different part of the network(which is still very tricky taxwise, but what can you do). Once offered direct or the Mc you know what I mean contract I had not to think twice to decide which one to pick.. MOL is the nicest guy in the world, at least that is what they say all the time about him during company training ^^). All so different if you are once inside they say....lol.

Last but not least: You cannot, I repeat, cannot, blame the drivers(I know, some do not like the term, but for nowadays autopilot pilots that's unfortunately the right term) for taking what they get. It is a.) local authorities allowing such deals, b.) the EU supporting companies doing so. What do you want to do about it as a simple pilot? Right - trying to survive because we do not get 14k a month for sitting in Brussels and voting right and catching the first plane Friday morning back home. It is as it is.

@tomuchwork Irony ;) I'm sure they would prefer a fixed contract instead of the "bogus self employment scheme.

and flying for only 1 operator is not an independent, it is being an employee.

Of course it is; always has been. The pilots' defence is a sort of "I was only obeying orders." From what we have heard it seems, allegedly, they had no choice. The contract was foisted upon them, take it or leave it. The whole contract content was without any input from the pilot nor any negotiation. The construction of the LTD in Ireland was without any input nor allowed objection from them. We hear it forbids them to work for anyone else or decide their time available and unavailable. How much more 'employee' can you be?
My comment about going for the soft target junkies, rather than the the hard dealers & sellers, is just that; soft targets. One might wonder if they are using them to lever open the door to the dark world behind. One might hope so, and the predominantly innocent parties, lower down the food chain, are not the only victims in any penalties.
There is a huge difference between pilots evading taxes and being pseudo self-employed. If the LTD is set up as told on here then taxes & other charges are paid. What happened before is something else. Where contributions might be incorrect = shortfall, is if their true status is deemed to be an employee. Then someone else should also be paying into the pot. That is where this will get interesting.

That's a choice, albeit a Hobson's choice.