Berlin Court Rules Ryanair’s Malta Air Must Bargain Over Pilot Rosters with Works Council
Published on 06/27/2026 at 07:32 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
A German labour court has blocked low-cost carrier Malta Air from unilaterally changing duty schedules for its flight crews at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), reinforcing the reach of German co-determination laws to foreign-owned airlines.
The Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Labour Court issued an interim injunction on 15 April 2026 after the Ryanair subsidiary altered pilots’ rosters without consulting the site’s works council. That employee body was elected in May 2025 and represents roughly 50 pilots and around 270 cabin crew members stationed at BER.
No right to appeal was granted under the ruling. The judges made clear that the works council was entitled to exercise its co-determination rights even before the final organisational structure of the BER unit had been settled. Malta Air had argued that the station lacked the legal status needed to sustain such a body, but the Federal Labour Court had already resolved that question on 13 May 2026: the BER base qualifies as an independent operational unit under German law.
The higher court’s classification is the legal foundation for applying Germany’s Works Constitution Act (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz) to the site. The Regional Labour Court stressed that the works council could now fully use its powers to protect the interests of pilots and flight attendants when schedules and shift plans are drawn up.
The case sends a clear message to the aviation industry. Simply choosing a foreign corporate seat—Malta Air is registered in Malta—does not shield a carrier from German employee-representation rules, provided the German location has sufficient organisational independence. For the roughly 320 Malta Air workers at BER, the ruling strengthens their collective voice. The airline must now win formal approval from the works council before issuing any new duty plan, forcing management and labour to balance operational needs against staff concerns on a procedural footing.
German courts have thus confirmed that the country’s workplace-relations standards apply to international airlines wherever their staff are actually deployed.
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