OK everyone, can we get this thread back on subject rather than lowering it to nation hating. The unifying thing about working for Ryanair is that one seems to feel that the hate from above is distributed evenly, regardless of where you come from
UK Viking
I don't know what contract you are on or if you are comparing the same, because I have two friends who are captains at easy and one who is an F/O. Maybe your friends are in Madrid or some other base, non UK, with differrent terms. For UK based easy pilots, the whole treatment and salary is far better than at Ryan. They have a 5/3, 5/4 earlies/lates roster, leave system is transparent, fair and flexible. No joke allocations of leave at thelast minute. It took a while to negotiate, but now they say they will never leave.
Agreed right now, expansion is not fast there, not unusual in many airlines. Ryan is only expanding relatively fast because their costs are lower. Why is that - because they pay us less than the other UK majors pay their pilots.
They absolutely rely on staff turnover so that pilots such as you come and go and are not so aware of what the salary was relative to the other UK companies. My figure of 8,000 GBP is the amount, in todays money, that you are paid LESS than the same RYR captain in 2000 was. The VALUE of your basic (and all the other pay) has got less due to the pay rises over the years never even approaching the rate of inflation. Ie you have been made poorer.
Don't think that you will be there only for a few years and then move - with the pay going down so fast, A LOT of fellow ryan pilots will have the same idea when the market picks up, the competiton for those jobs will be immense, and because ryan will have taken market share due to the crap pay = lower overheads there will be less jobs, and on lower money, to choose from than in the last upswing in the market. It's a race to the bottom, led by ryanair, but we can do something to stop it.
We can get the union. Force the company to negotiate. Remove the reason why we will all be looking for another job!
Happy landings!