RAM sues its suspended trainee pilots, as the indebted professionals ‘suffocate’

Moroccan airline “Royal Air Maroc” (RAM) has taken legal action against its trainee pilots, after having suspended them for over 2 years following the COVID-19 outbreak.

The National Coordination of Trainee Pilots have taken to social media to call out the “unfair and detrimental” judicial action, and are lamenting “RAM’s refusal to sit down with the pilots and reach a mutually acceptable solution.”

The coordination claims that RAM has suspended the trainee pilots for over 2 years now, “with no financial compensation or social coverage.”

According to the coordination, “RAM promised to reintegrate the pilots once the Moroccan air space will be open again, and once the airline’s activity will relaunch as normal,” following the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020.

“Since then, the trainee pilots have remained undeclared, unregistered, with no contract prospects from the carrier, and still have to repay debts of their training to banks,” says the coordination.

RAM trainee pilots were required to “take out a MAD 1,6 million loan each, which was supposed to be repaid in installments from their salaries for a duration of 10 years, once they would be integrated into the RAM permanent personnel,” explains the coordination.

But after two years of “silence” from the carrier, banks are now requiring the trainees to start paying back their training loans, despite not being employed and not having any source of income.

The bank has now sent a cease and desist letter to some of pilots, saying the pilots “are in violation of their contractual obligations,” and have to repay the debts they owe the bank. The letter allows the pilots an 8 day deadline to repay an approximate MAD 1,262.500 each.

Simultaneously, the carrier has sued the pilots, claiming that RAM was only acting as “a sponsor” to the loans, adding that “since the pilots are refusing to repay the loans, RAM is suing to dissolve the sponsorship and is now requiring the pilots to repay what the RAM has paid the banks on their behalf.”

Eddamani Wafaa, one of the trainee pilots, told Hespress EN that “the carrier is requesting the imprisonment of the trainees who are unable to repay their loans, to set the example for the others.”

Eddamani says that the “RAM is imposing this injustice in the name of the COVID-19 crisis, by punishing hopeful civil servants who have done nothing but excel at their academic career and craft.”