The former employees of Turkish Airlines (THY) whose contracts were unceremoniously terminated by a text message on July 22 (https://www.aviationnews-online.com/editorial-comment/turkish-airlines-sacks-211-employees/), have filed a wrongful discharge suit in an Istanbul court and have filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutors against the airline. The employees, which includes former CFO Coskun Kilic, claims that they have suffered from the unlawful termination of their contracts as well as the misleading press release issued by Turkish Airlines at the time, which stated that the contracts were cancelled “given the internal company requirements, the nonfulfillment of performance or productivity criterion or in line with the necessary actions we are taking against the FETÖ structure, attitudes and behaviour conflicting with the interest of our country and company”.
Coskun Kilic complaint centres on the fact that the airline’s decision to terminate his contract and the entire finance team without good reason coupled with this press release has damaged their reputations as it appears to link them with the FETO terror organisation.
He said: "We do not deserve to be put in the same position with the betrayers to our country. We learned about our contract termination via an sms message on a Sunday afternoon. There is no single accusation, formal or informal investigation, legal action or even a single [piece of] evidence against us. This has also been proven by the company's termination letter stating that the reason of our contracts' termination is just an internal company requirement which indicates there is no fault of the employee. As a result of such discretionary act of the company, we were paid off for all of our legal rights and seniority compensations. However, the unfair treatment that was shown against us during this period is totally an outrage."
Kilic has further explained that he was aware that Murat Seker was interviewed by the Chairman prior to the action taken on July 22, when Kilic repeated his offer to resign but instead he was included in the mass termination of employees, which ended almost all of the finance top management team's contracts in an “opportunistic understanding even at the cost of demolishing the whole accounting, reporting and financing memory and culture of the company”.
Although Kilic states that “Turkish Airlines is just a past memory for me”, he is demanding the “restoration of my team members and my honor back in the shortest time possible”.