In order to draw a pension, a CRPN member at the end of their air crew career must submit a written application to claim their pension entitlements 2 to 3 months before the effective date they have selected.
To qualify for a pension, the member must meet specific employment (length of air crew career) and age requirements, go through the entitlement claim process, check the career they have accrued and put together a pension application.
Once their claim has been approved, the member will become a CRPN pensioner.

When do it apply for my retirement pension?

Please refer to :

• our guide entitled CRPN pension claim rules applicable from November 1, 2023

What is the application procedure?

Requirement

Please refer to our guide entitled “Claiming your CRPN retirement pension step by step” for help with your paperwork.

Members must submit their application to claim their pension:

• Either through their online , personal account on www.crpn.fr,
• Or alternatively, by submitting a signed written application either by mail (14 rue des Pyramides, CS 60322, 75041 Paris Cedex 01) or by email (affilies@crpn.fr).

We recommend that you submit your application to CRPN about 3 months before the effective date you have chosen for your pension. Your application must have been submitted by the last day of the month prior to that date.

Download the pension application form

Applying to claim your entitlements

Once CRPN has received your pension claim, we will send you a full application to claim your entitlements. You then have a year from your chosen pension effective date to fill out your application and send it back to us along with all required supporting documents (a two-year deadline applies to certain special circumstances when claiming due to permanent incapacity for work or upon exhausting unemployment benefits).

You will need to log in to your personal account and download your career history statement (“relevé de carrière”). If applicable, you will also need to download and sign a statement listing your periods of alternating work and retirement and/or alternating work and parental leave:

• If you agree with the periods and wages that have been reported and posted to your career, you will need to approve and sign your career history statement and attach it to your pension claim application,
• Otherwise, if you want to have periods off work credited to your account, either free of charge or through buyback, or if there are any corrections to be made to your career record, you will need to submit the required supporting documents for the operation you are requesting. Once any credits have been posted or corrections made, you will need to approve and sign your new career history statement and send it back to CRPN.

Once a pension has been claimed, no more buybacks or free crediting can be done.

What supporting documents am I required to submit?

You will be required to submit the following documents :

• Your signed and approved career history record (“relevé de carrière”) to download in your personal account,
• In case of periods of alternate time or alternate parental leave validated free of charge, the sworn statement linked to the career record,
• A full copy of your birth certificate, which you can get from the town hall of your place of birth,
• A full copy of your French family record book (“livret de famille”),
• A birth certificate for each child if you have had three or more children,
• If you raised three or more children over a period of 9 years which coincided with a period of CRPN contributions before their 21st birthday, you will need to submit a birth certificate for each child, 9 notices of tax assessment or 9 certificates of payment from your family benefits fund covering that same period,
• An official banking information slip (“relevé d’identité bancaire”/ RIB),
• a certificate of termination of employment and wages, to be filled out by your last air crew employer (form provided by CRPN).
• You may need to submit additional documents, including tax certificates.

After receipt of the completed application

The duly completed application is submitted to the Pension Committee, which generally holds a meeting twice a month.

After validation by the Committee:

The new pensioner receives:

• the 1^st bank transfer of his pension,
• on request, an attestation for the Pôle Emploi [French governmental employment agency].

The following is available in his personal account:

• His pension book,
• a letter notifying the liquidation and detailing the 1^st bank transfer.

Claiming your pension through the alternating work-retirement program

Air crew members who are ready to draw a pension but:

• want to improve the amount of their entitlements before they enter full retirement or
• want to continue working while arranging for paid periods off work,

can apply to claim their pension entitlements through the alternating work-retirement program if their employer has signed an agreement that allows for this arrangement to be set up.

Our guide,  Retiring through the alternating work-retirement program, can help you through your decision-making process.

The rules when you claim through the alternating work-retirement program are the same as when claiming all entitlements: please refer to the 2 sections above regarding when to apply and what the application procedure entails. However, members over the age of 50 cannot perform a buyback before they have submitted a partial claim for entitlements through the alternating work-retirement program. The member will be offered this possibility before they enter full retirement, when they apply to claim the remaining entitlements not claimed through the alternating work-retirement program.

Download the form to Apply to claim pension entitlements through the alternating work-retirement program.

The required supporting documents :

• Your signed and approved career history record (“relevé de carrière”), to download in your personal account,
• In case of periods of alternate time or alternate parental leave validated free of charge, the sworn statement linked to the career record,
• A copy of the amendment to your employment contract covering your participation in the alternating work-retirement program,
• Your schedule of months off through the alternating work-retirement program,
• A full copy of your birth certificate, which you can get from the town hall of your place of birth,
• A full copy of your French family record book (“livret de famille”),
• A birth certificate for each child if you have had three or more children,
• If you raised three or more children over a period of 9 years which coincided with a period of CRPN contributions before their 21st birthday, you will need to submit a birth certificate for each child, 9 notices of tax assessment or 9 certificates of payment from your family benefits fund covering that same period,
• An official banking information slip (“relevé d’identité bancaire”/ RIB),
• A certificate of termination of employment and wages, to be filled out by your last air crew employer (form provided by CRPN).
• You may need to submit additional documents, including tax certificates.

Once you have terminated all employment, you will need to submit a written application to claim the portion of your entitlements that you did not claim through the alternating work-retirement program by the same deadlines that apply to all pension entitlement applications (partial through the alternating work-retirement program or in full). We recommend that you submit your application to CRPN about 3 months before the effective date you have chosen for your pension. Your application must have been submitted by the last day of the month prior to that date.

Download our pension claim application form.

Claiming your pension under european coordination rules

If you have had air crew employment in several EU member States, you may be best off applying to claim your entitlements under European coordination rules. Our guide to European coordination  can help you through the decision-making process.

The rules for your claim are those set forth by the French transport code. Your entitlement will be assessed on the basis of all of your periods of employment, whether these were completed in France or in another European member State.

If you choose to claim your pension under European coordination rules, you will be asked to submit a statement of all of your periods of air crew employment for which you paid contributions to another European scheme, listed year by year and specifying job type.

With this in mind, if you have had professional air crew employment in civil aviation in a European Economic Area member country other than France, please keep all documentation relating to that employment (certificates of employment, employment statements approved by the pension schemes to which you belonged, etc.) You may need it when applying to claim your CRPN pension entitlements.

The career history statement (“relevé de carrière”), dans le cadre de son dossier de liquidation de droits, which will be sent to you for approval lists the periods of air crew employment you have completed in one or more European countries other than France, broken down by country.

Your application will be processed according to the same rules as for those only involving entitlements accrued under the CRPN scheme (see sections above).

Documenting your pension claim

Once the pension board has approved your claim, you will receive a bank transfer for the balance of the entitlements you are due for the period of time from your pension payable date up to the end of the previous month.

At the same time, a letter of acknowledgement of your claim and your certificate of pension entitlement (“titre de pension”) will be made available in your personal account. This document certifies that you have claimed your entitlements and shows the gross monthly amounts of each benefit on the date your pension became payable, as approved by the pension board.

You will then receive a pension statement any time there is a change to the net monthly amount of your pension.

The French unemployment agency “Pôle Emploi” may ask you for a document showing the amount of your supplementary retirement pension in order to determine what benefits you can be paid at the same time. Do not send in your certificate of pension entitlement (“titre de pension”), your notice of pension entitlement (“notification de droits”), or any pension statements showing all benefits paid (some of which are not lifelong). Ask CRPN to issue you a special pension statement for “Pôle Emploi.”

The minimum retirement pension or “Talon”

If you claim all of your entitlements with an effective date on or after January 1st, 2012, the “talon” is a guaranteed minimum pension for members who have accrued at least 25 years through contributions.

If you claim in 2019, your yearly pension (before any rate reduction is applied) cannot be less than 795 € per year for each year accrued through contributions or buyback.

On January 1st of each year beginning January 1st, 2020, this amount of 795 € will be indexed against the Corrected Wage Variation Index (“IVSC”).

Only those members claiming all of their pension entitlements on or after January 1st, 2012, are eligible for this minimum pension or “talon”.

If you claim a portion of your entitlements through the alternating work-retirement program, you will not be eligible for the minimum pension or “talon” for the partial pension you draw while participating in the program.

Pension awarded as a single cash payment

For personal and survivor’s entitlements with an effective date on or after 01/01/2012, when the monthly amount of the pension is less than 2% of the monthly Social Security ceiling on the possible effective date for that entitlement, a single cash payment equal to the amount of the theoretical yearly entitlement multiplied by a weighting factor based on the claimant’s age on the effective date for the claim is awarded in place of a monthly pension. (These weighting factors are set by the Board of directors).

To learn more, please refer to our guide entitled “Pensions awarded as a single cash payment”.