Ryanair holds an Irish AOC and is therefore, regardless of origin/destination of the flight, regulated by the IAA.
Therein lies the problem. The IAA has neither the ability, nor the interest, in overseeing ryanair. They are utterly toothless and beholden to mol’s threats to relocated to eastern Europe.
The problem highlighted by this incident, of the inadequate preparation, is typical. This is a known problem and has contributed to previous incidents. It is absolutely impossible, in Dublin, as anywhere else, to get a days operation fully briefed inside 45 mins, while allowing for a long drive to the aeroplane, the security queues etc. Why is nothing said about the lack of back-up, the operational deficiencies, the broken printers etc etc? Is this what the IAA considers to be an environment conducive to safely planning a days operation? We know what FR management think, but they don't care.
The report is a farce also. The raison d’etre of an incident report is to present the facts AND ask why they occurred. The major contributory factor of inadequate preparation is highlighted, but at no time is the question asked as to why. Why is this? Is there an agenda from the responsible agencies to cosset ryanair in case their business is lost? That’s a rhetorical question as the answer is as obvious as night follows day.
So once again, through wilful company neglect and total regulatory failure, the problem drops into the laps of a good crew, who are left to carry the can for a total lack of support from anyone else.
Have the IAA not yet learned? Ryanair themselves will do NOTHING safety related that costs any money at all unless forced to. Safety is not a priority at this company. Do they not realise that when the “big one,” as inevitable as it is unthinkable, happens they too will be in the dock, charged with gross and wilful neglect in their responsibilities?
Why has nothing been said, apart from a half-hearted demand not to do it again, about the extreme delay in reporting the incident to the authorities? This has happened so often before (CIA, Skasta etc). Again, no questions as to why? Doesn't anyone in the IAA/AAIU care about a systematic failure to own up to serious incidents? Shouldn't someone be asking a little more about a safety culture, or lack thereof, that permits these "oversights"?
The aviation industry is as safe as it is through decades of application to increasing safety, to putting in place safety layers, checks and balances. Ryanair and the IAA are systematically, in the name of cost cutting and money making respectively, removing these layers.
As for the pilots, damned if you, damned if you don’t. Turn up on-time, preparation is rushed. Act professionally and turn up early, and what thanks from the company? Another pay cut? More abuse? Maybe a little bullying? Or maybe just some plain old-fashioned firing.
And yet pilots are the one functioning layer of safety at ryanair. That’s what it’s been cut back to. So we are now in a situation where the only thing preventing the smoking holes is being, yet again, systematically undermined. Having removed every other layer of safety, ryanair now see fit to attempt to reduce the stature of the last layer to that of underpaid bus driver. And if that doesn’t work, bullying and vindictiveness are a nice substitute.
There is no safety culture in ryanair management. Nor the IAA. Period. “But it can’t be like that” I hear you say. But it can. And it can be, precisely because you don’t believe it can be.
Be afraid, be very afraid.