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Air Transport Fund

Publication: 09/03/2022

With Inter-ministerial decree No. 95269 of 7 April 2016, published in the Official Gazette No. 118 of 21 May 2016, in implementation of Articles 26 to 40, Italian Legislative decree No. 148 of 14 September 2015, the governing of the special fund for the support of income and employment and the conversion and professional re-training of air transport sector personnel was adjusted, starting from 1 January 2016 to the provisions of the legislative decree itself. From this date, the Special Fund has taken the name of "Solidarity Fund for the air transport sector and the airport system".

The supplementary services of the Fund are subject to the existence of public reference services that supplement it (CIGS, Ordinary Mobility Allowance, ASpI / NASpI) and which follow the fortunes and the statutory system.

The supplementary benefits of the Solidarity Fund therefore are due to the same beneficiaries of public services, namely:

  • if connected to the CIGS benefit, to workers hired with an employment contract, including apprentices with a professional apprenticeship contract, with the exclusion of managers;
  • if referring to the mobility allowance, to workers hired for an indefinite period, with the status of worker, employee or manager, dismissed and placed in mobility by the company, with the exclusion of managers;
  • if related to the ASpI / NASpI compensation, to workers with an employment relationship who have involuntarily lost their employment.

In general, all services provided by the Fund, including those for financing training programmes, do not apply to managers as they are not expressly provided for in the inter-ministerial decree.

Start date and duration

The duration of the supplementary services of the Mobility / ASpI / NASpI amount and for CIGS are commensurate with the duration of the public services of reference of which each worker is beneficiary.

The supplementary benefit, on the other hand, is established for a maximum of two years for workers whose ordinary or ASpI / NASpI mobility benefits have been requested and enjoyed for the period starting from 1 July 2014 until 30 June 2016 and which on 1 January 2016 are beneficiaries.

The supplementary benefit of duration, therefore, can be accessed by workers for whom the date of the dismissal and the date of the claim for the provision of income support are in the aforementioned period and who, as of 1 January 2016, are entitled to mobility allowance or the ASpI / NASpI compensation.

Workers whose mobility or ASpI / NASpI benefits, even if requested and enjoyed with effect from 1 July 2014, have already terminated on 31 December 2015, may access the term benefit.

For access to the supplementary duration benefits, use of the ordinary mobility period or ASpI / NASpI must have come to an end. Workers who no longer qualify to use the public reference service that the Fund supplements during the duration are excluded.

What am I entitled to?

The Solidarity Fund provides:

  • supplementary benefits of the amount of the mobility allowance, the ASpI / NASpI compensation and the Extraordinary Wage Compensation Fund also following the signing of a solidarity contract, the maximum duration of which is equal to the duration of the unemployment arrangement of reference;
  • supplementary benefits of the duration, for a maximum of two years, of the mobility allowance or ASpI / NASpI for each beneficiary worker, limited to the mobility services or ASpI / NASpI requested and received for the period starting from 1 July 2014 until 30 June 2016, for those who at 1 January 2016 are beneficiaries of the mobility allowance, which may be extended, subject to specific assessment of the economic sustainability by the Committee, to those workers whose mobility services or ASpI / NASpI, even if requested and enjoyed for the period starting on 1 July 2014, ceased on 31 December 2015;
  • extraordinary allowances to support income, aimed at facilitating retirement processes, for workers who meet the requirements envisaged for the old age pension or early retirement in the following five years (not dealt with in this sheet);
  • financing of training programmes for conversion or professional retraining also in competition with the appropriate national or European Union funds, in order to avoid expulsion of workers in the sector from the employment world, as well as to promote the re-employability of workers in the sector in CIGS, mobility, or users of the ASpI / NASpI allowance through projects aimed at achieving the best match between job demand and supply.

For supplementary services of the amount of the mobility allowance and ASpI / NASpI, for the benefit of the Extraordinary Wage Compensation Fund also following the signing of a solidarity contract and for the supplementary service for a maximum of two years, the Fund provides a supplementary benefit such as to guarantee that the overall benefit is equal to 80% of the gross reference remuneration, resulting from the average of the fixed gross remuneration, the additional gross monthly salaries and the contractual gross remuneration items of a continuous nature, received by the interested party in the 12 months preceding the claim, with the specific exclusion of remuneration for overtime work.

The same remuneration is used to calculate the measure of the intervention relative to individual workers admitted to the training programmes.

The Fund pays the relevant contribution for the period of disbursement of the supplementary benefit following the registration management of the workers in question. The relevant contribution is useful for achieving the pension entitlement as well as to determine the amount and it is calculated with the same methods established for the public service to be supplemented.

The Fund operates in accordance with the balanced budget principle and cannot make payments if it has no financial resources.

From 1 January 2016, to finance the benefits of the Solidarity Fund, an ordinary contribution of 0.50% is due monthly (of which 0.333% paid by the dependent worker and 0.167% by the workers) of the taxable salary for social security purposes of all employees, excluding managers.

Until 31 December 2018, the Fund included the increase in the municipal surcharge on boarding fees pursuant to Article 6 quater, Decree Law No. 7 of 31 January 2005, and subsequent amendments and additions.

Payment to workers of the supplementary benefit in the amount (mobility and ASpI / NASpI) charged to the Fund is subject to the acknowledgement of the mobility allowance and ASpI / NASpI, the amount of which is necessary for calculating what is due arising from a difference as a supplementary allowance.

The payment is also subject to the adoption by the Committee of a resolution authorising the claim submitted by the company and also at the end of the period relating to the public reference service (mobility or ASpI / NASpI).

The supplementary benefits of CIGS payments provided for by union agreements signed as from 1 January 2016 are paid to the workers directly by INPS; consequently, only sums advanced to workers can be reimbursed to companies, by way of supplementary CIGS benefit, arising from agreements signed by 31 December 2015 (INPS circular No. 198 of 14 November 2016).

Withdrawal of benefit

The re-employment of the worker in any paid working activity, whether temporary or self-employed, during the period in which public income support benefits are received and the FTA supplementary benefit, must be notified to INPS (for example in the event of re-employment relating to an employment relationship established with foreign employers in the area of a foreign state - INPS circular No. 57 of 6 May 2014).

If the worker fails to notify being newly employed during the use of the services of reference and the supplementary benefits of the Fund, he/she loses the benefit. Therefore, pilot personnel, in coincidence with the expiry of validity of credentials held and at the end of the renewal or restoration of the latter, must notify annually to INPS, within 30 days following the issue of authorisations, starting from the date registered on the flight pass, a self-certification in which periods of paid work aimed exclusively at maintaining the aforementioned qualifications are declared (INPS circular No. 94 of 8 July 2011, paragraph C).

For pilot personnel of air carriers in CIGS, or mobility, or ASpI / NASpI, the obligation to notify  re-employment does not apply, in the event in which evidence of remunerated work can be provided, aimed exclusively at the maintenance of flight qualifications, exclusivity which, obviously, does not exist in the case of work carried out in the context of any type of work contract, or in the context of self-employed activities.

Even in the event of work carried out abroad, flight and ground personnel must submit to INPS, by 31 December of each year, a self-certification in which they certify that they have not carried out work paid abroad during the year, or any periods worked, starting from the beginning of the service provided by INPS (INPS circular No. 94 of 8 July 2011, paragraph D).

Self-certification forms must be forwarded to the regionally relevant INPS Entity for the public service of reference and to the regionally relevant INPS Entity which settles the supplementary service of the Air Transport Fund.

In the event that the omission of the self-certifications is ascertained, regionally relevant structures will suspend the public provision of income support and relevant supplementary service, or the supplementary duration service for mobility and ASpI / NASpI and, simultaneously, send a request for documentation to interested parties at the residence appearing in INPS's records. The benefit will be restored, starting from the date of suspension, at the time the requested documentation is forwarded.

Requirements

Access to the services by the companies is subject to payment of insurance contributions with reference to the totality of the payments due to INPS, including payments of the municipal surcharge on boarding fees. Payment of insurance contributions is also verified with reference to the legislation on the certificate of contributions compliance (DURC from its Italian initials or "Documento Unico di Regolarità Contributiva”).

The new rules apply to benefits payable by the Fund starting from 1 January 2016. For all events occurring during the Fund's transitional period of adaptation, peremptory deadlines for the submission of claims start from the date of entry into force of the adaptation decree, i.e. from the date of 6 June 2016, the fifteenth day following that of publication in the Official Gazette of Inter-ministerial decree No. 95269 of 7 April 2016. Starting from 6 June 2016, it is no longer possible to receive or submit according to the rules of the pre-existing Special Fund, claims for access to benefits and any claims submitted in the old ways cannot take effect and must be resubmitted in accordance with the new methods.

With reference to the system of compatibility and cumulation with other self-employed and subordinate work activities, supplementary services of the Fund relating to mobility, ASpI / NASpI and CIGS are subject to the existence of specific main benefits and follow the fortunes.

The supplementary benefit connected to the mobility allowance is not compatible with holding a direct pension. In the event of entitlement to invalidity insurance, however, the option must be exercised in favour of income support, on penalty of forfeiture of the latter and the relevant supplementation.

How can I claim?

Claims for accessing all the Fund's services are submitted on-line to INPS by the employer through the dedicated service (INPS circular No. 132 of 14 July 2016).