AeroCandeia said on Tuesday that the review covered work from January 2019 to December 2025. Its accounting puts the provision at R$286 million (about €45 million), including interest and employment-related contributions, with individual payments expected to range from R$3,200 to R$24,000.
The audit found that the carrier’s timekeeping system had omitted some pre-flight briefings and post-flight close-out duties when calculating paid hours. The company said the flaw affected cabin crew across its domestic and international network, but did not change flight schedules or passenger fares.
How the hours went missing
AeroCandeia commissioned the review after a payroll-system upgrade prompted questions from staff about differences between rostered duty and paid time. Auditors compared crew rosters, payroll records and signed work logs for seven years, then sampled 1,800 monthly records against archived flight schedules.
“We treated some required duties as operational preparation rather than paid working time. That was our error, and we are correcting it for everyone covered by the review,” said Zoe Parker-Edwards, the carrier’s finance director. She said the company would begin issuing payment notices in November and aims to complete transfers by March.
We treated some required duties as operational preparation rather than paid working time. That was our error, and we are correcting it for everyone covered by the review.
Zoe Parker-Edwards, finance director
David Pieterse, a representative of the cabin crew workers’ association, said the review gave workers a way to check calculations against their own records. “People have kept old rosters and notebooks because they could not tell why a duty day looked longer than the paid day,” he said. The association plans to offer members help reviewing their individual statements.
A costly correction for the carrier
The R$286 million charge is equivalent to roughly 6% of AeroCandeia’s reported operating profit last year. The company said it would fund the payments from cash reserves and expects no immediate change to fares, route plans or recruitment, although it has postponed a planned expansion of its crew-training centre in Recife.
Labour economist Mert Dizdar, who reviewed the company’s published figures, said the amount appeared to be the largest single payroll correction disclosed by a Brazilian airline. He cautioned that there is no complete public register of private settlements, so the figure cannot establish a definitive national record across every carrier.
AeroCandeia said staff who have left the company will be contacted using their most recent payroll details, with a separate claims route for people whose bank accounts have changed. The carrier will publish a progress report in April, after payments are due to finish; the workers’ association says it will compare the final totals with member records.
