A Dutch low-cost airline is to be fined by the country’s labour regulator after it discovered the carrier had taken on a group of apprentices who ended up working as full-time flight attendants for several months last summer.
In a statement, the Dutch Labour Inspectorate said the group of apprentices were given the same duties and responsibilities as normal cabin attendants for an extended period of time between February and June 2022.
Regulators were careful not to name the airline at the centre of their investigation, but Transavia, the budget subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group, later admitted that it was the company probed by the Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie.
In the Netherlands, young adults can undertake vocational-based education and training at MBO colleges. These courses normally involve internships at real companies where the focus is meant to be on training and learning on the job.
Instead, as noted by Aerotelegraph, inspectors found that the apprentices taken on by Transavia completed normal cabin crew training and ended up working as full-time flight attendants but on lower wages.
In total, around 60 apprentices from five different colleges were employed by Transavia.
“During the internship of these students, training should be the focus, but the internship was mainly focused on working and not learning,” the labour inspectorate said in a statement.
Transavia is to be fined and has been ordered to pay backpay to the apprentices during the time they were found to be full-time employees.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Transavia said it ‘deeply regretted’ the situation and said the internship programme had not ended up going as it originally intended.
