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21 October 2011 / Charles Pigott
Issue: 7486 / Categories: Features , Tribunals , Discrimination , Terms&conditions , Disciplinary&grievance procedures , Employment
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Flying high

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Charles Pigott reports on soaring retirement ages

Last month’s decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Prigge v Deutsche Lufthansa AG C-447/09 is about three German airline pilots who were made to retire at 60. Their employer relied on a term in a collective agreement providing for automatic termination of their employment at the age of 60. Both German and international aviation legislation allows pilots to continue to fly between the ages of 60 and 65 as long as they do so as part of a crew with at least one pilot under the age of 60.

Abiding by the Directive

The ECJ had to decide whether the collective agreement infringed the Employment Framework Directive (2000/78/EC). It needed to look at three provisions of the Directive:
 

  • Article 2(5), which excludes measures from the scope of the Directive which, among other things, are necessary for the protection of health;
  • Article 4(1), which creates an exemption for a “genuine and determining occupational requirement, provided that the objective is
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