Terms and EndearmentThe forum the beancounters hoped would never happen. Your news on pay, rostering, allowances, extras and negotiations where you work. Let others in the industry make educated choices on where the grass is less brown! Scheduled, charter or contract -
Even if there was a strike, I doubt enough people would join it. And there are plenty of FOs who would rather work a shit load of hours whilst everyone else is on strike and make easy money, along with contractor captains...
you reap what you sow.....
personally I'd feel a right dick paying for all the stuff any decent employer should provide.
All these protests about 'well you always get home to your bed....' what total toss, and you might as well stay in it for your days off as you'll be that knackered.
I love these generalised b*llocks statements on PPRuNe. In your experience of where exactly have you formed this industry wide viewpoint? You not just copying and pasting what FR have being saying on their website now are you? Next you will be telling us you are the best paid in Europe!
The 5/4 looks attractive on the face of it but what if you only want to work earlies and not lates or vice versa? Your not allowed to swap. Then the lates run into your days off etc etc. Personally I like my earlies as I am home around lunchtime and can have dinner with my family. Horses for courses but I would never be as bold as to suggest that my companies rosters were the "best".
Ryanair= best roster in the industry, always home at night
Despite if this statement of opinion is true or not? I would like to ask you two questions.
1. Does anything you say permit or merit management treating it pilots with distain or like horse manure??
After management have just finished the recent Ryanair UK Based Pilots Experience Reaction tour. Also known as "RUBPER" up because if you don't do what we say we will threaten your livelihood.
2. Does this merit Cabin Crew given temporary contracts then laid off for no reason in their 11th month? After spending thousands of pounds of their own money for training then in their 11 month of employment with Ryanair through some poxy contract agency told "Goodbye". In many people’s opinion, the only reason for this is to make way for someone who will do it cheaper with £3000 in there back pocket to pay for training again. Is that ethically and morally right?
Seems to me that people have to put the coffee on and face up to the realities of life in RYR and how it is damaging our profession and the rest of the industry.
A message to the standard RYR bashers out there. Trying to preach to RYR pilots that you get what you deserve does nobody any help and serves injustice to the many hard working and Stella staff that work with the company in whatever capacity or whatever contract.
It also does a serious injustice to yourselves because unless you can talk to colleagues in RYR to wake up and make the right decision in the BALPA UK campaign for recognition, this type of thing is coming your way. Either support RYR pilots to do the right option for their and your long term careers or your own companies are not going to be able to compete with RYR in the future because of it's lower cost base and staff costs and will have to evolve; as in go bust, merge or bring the RYR policies to your company. Ryanair and its management practices is as much your problem as it is Ryanair pilots and employees themselves.
One thing nobody can doubt is Ryanair's ability to adapt and lead the industry in cutting costs in whatever form. What most Ryanair pilots can not tolerate is that cost being our dignity and respect.
BALPA does not give a monkeys about Ryanair, all they care about is other airlines adopting Ryanair ideas. Guys you really think they are going to do anything?? Why don't you ask some of the laid off BMI Baby crew, see how BALPA helped them (did nothing) or Buzz? Once BALPA is in and Ryanair throw there toys out of the pram, BALPAs job is done. Good times for BALPA, bad times for us.
Ryanair is far from perfect, but if people out there that seem so abused by them, cannot cope with all the 'stress' and you feel they don't show you respect "good job timmy" by them. LEAVE. easy.
Either your own companies are not going to be able to compete with RYR in the future because of it's lower cost base and staff costs and will have to evolve; as in go bust, merge or bring the RYR policies to your company. Ryanair and its management practices is as much your problem as it is Ryanair pilots and employees themselves.
Absolutely SPOT ON! You could even expand it to the entire LoCo part of aviation i.o. just RYR. LoCo is the cancer in aviation and it's spreading like crazy!
What always amazes me is how people that get paid to "have a good situational awareness" and to "think ahead of the airplane" can be so narrow minded and so much engaged in short term thinking.
My dear Ryanair guys, most of you lower your pants paying for the rating so don't complain when you have a pain in your back!!!, now you are getting what you deserve.
Low cost companies in EU have being getting low time pilots who are willing to pay 23,000 euros for a B737NG or A320 type rating, no hotel, no perdiem, no uniform, etc.
The only thing those companies have being looking during the recruitment is the willing to pay from the low hour pilots.
So, after 1 or 2 years of flying, you want to get the benefits that you didn't ask from the begining.
I know spanish guys who paid 30,000 euros for a A320 type plus another 15,000 euros for 300 hrs on seat!!!
Even, American Eagle Spain has got a bunch of guys who paid 30,000 bucks for a B737 type rating and a job in COPA Panama.
The trouble is there are too many in RYR with no experience of other companies. I averaged 1.9days/week last year, got paid 77000 (FO) and had about 4 weeks on the beach for my troubles. And no I don't work for some Crown Prince in Guadaloupe, just one of the two big UK Charters.
Wake up, get some balls and join Balpa. If you are wondering what they can do our company has 90%+ memberships and our t&cs are excellent. Oh and I nearly forgot, the company made 250mil last year.
So what will BALPA do that they have not been able to do already? There are alot of people who can make statements here with no answers. There are not alot of jobs around. Spoke to one of the 21 Virgin guys who has been let go and apart from bringing his family to Asia there is nothing else in Europe and he hopes to get into Ryanair.
Ryanair= best roster in the industry, always home at night...
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. I'm glad I left that orange glowing, low cost hell because my life has improved 100%!
Many of those young snot nosed FO's/Captains/glorified button pushers just don't know any better, but rationalize their fear of trying something new by coming up with cr@p about "great rosters" and "sleeping in your own bed."
They even rationalize their lack of backbone in trying to improve their own lousy contracts by saying more cr@p like: "oh, don't go somewhere else, it's sh!t everywhere," "all airlines are like this" and (my favorite!) "the grass is not always greener somewhere else." The grass can hardly get any more brown when you're paying for your type rating, uniform and are working like a dog flying 4 sectors per day etc.
Believe me, I've heard all those "well intended warnings" before, the moment it became known in my base that I was leaving.
The grass is greener, so get out, or try to change things for the better!
bleating about what did or didn't happen when other pilots were laid off is unproductive. Two points here:
One, a union can and will only do what it is instructed to do by its members in that airline, and what it can legally achieve. If redundancies are going to happen in an airline, then in most cases there is little that can be done as that is the airline's right. If a union is fully engaged with the company, and clearly this is the case in Thomson, then WITH THE BACKING OF ALL THE PILOTS it is possible to mitigate, or in the Thomson case, avoid redundancies as the pilots looked after the vulnerable individuals by agreeing to a small paycut to save jobs. This is, of course, after years of decent pay rises negotiated with the assistance of BALPA, which contrasts rather markedly with the massive reduction in RYR salaries against inflation since 2000.
Two, making statements such as 'what are THEY' going to do once Balpa are voted in' is completely false. Balpa are a reflection of the pilots will and in fact, are merely the legal backing and protection for a group of ryanair pilots who have decided 'enough is enough' and are trying to do something about it. It is not a question of whether RYR pilots get behind their union, more a question of whether RYR pilots get behind the other pilots and try to change the poisonous working culture and atmosphere that exists. This is why the slogan is 'Dignity and Respect', because without demanding respect, the company can get away with treating pilots like shit.
Basically, all it takes is for RYR UK based pilots to grow a pair, see that the company is full of bull and bluster, and stand with their fellows. Are you man or woman enough to do that, or are you going to tuck your tail between your legs and take your year on year paycuts while the company makes profits in the hundreds of millions.....
For months certain PPRUNERs (not yourself, it was just a similar comment to the norm) have been tearing into the FR guys for putting up with it all, and not taking action.Whereas, here's a thread with someone on the brink of getting the ball rolling, and now he gets torn apart for thinking its possible!Damned if you do, damned if you dont
The only reason why Pilots join Ryanair is because they want a first job, especially if they have came straight from FTO i.e. Oxford Aviation etc because they get alot of there cadets or New F/O, so it's an easy way in getting a first job. It may not be the best airline in the world i for one don't like them, but like i have been told its good to get a first job may not be the best but it's a start, because all the pilots in this world know how hard it is to get the first job.
Ryanair's treatment of its staff, customers, investors, suppliers etc etc is renowned so I won't reitterate the obvious. This talk of a strike though is a bit perplexing though.
Firstly, you have to get union recognition in Ryanair. If you're not already I suggest Ryanair pilots (Brookfield and Ryanair) join BALPA and get ready to vote (by secret ballot) when the time comes (and it WILL come.. from what I hear it will be sooner than a lot of people might think).
Secondly, you guys have to have the BALLS to stand up to management! Its fair enough posting on here but from the Town Hall meetings I heard about I have to say I was disappointed, nay ANGRY, when I heard about the lack of fire in the bellies of the attending pilots. You had the top brass there waiting for your piercing questions. What did you do? Sat there and talked about trivialities. What a joke. BALPA is turning up the heat because of some forward thinking pilots in Ryanair - where are the rest of you? Why should those guys put themselves out if the rest of you don't have the balls to even sign up to the petition!
Pissed off at your job? Want to stick it to management but don't want to get "caught at it"? Then join BALPA, and get ready to vote for recognition in the secret ballot coming to a doorstep near you!
YOU are BALPA. YOU are the guy who has to draw the line in the sand. Quite literally, if you want to save your profession - BALPA NEEDS YOU!
For those who keep saying "that's what you get", "you should know better etc" what would they honestly do in the position of us FO's who just managed to get in the Ryanair door before they stopped recruiting? Would you sit it out with £100k of debts? Try to find another job? Believe me I thought long and hard, and waited just about as long as I could trying everything else before I went to RYR. Sometimes it might be easy for those sitting on the fence to criticise us while they are already in a good job with a decent airline. Not to mention I know 1 person who paid for TR for an African company that never materilised, and several who paid for TR & line training in Asia, with no job at the end of it!
As regards BALPA, I would personally gladly give up a few % of my salary (If I got one!) to not see any of my colleagues loose their jobs as was the case with Thompson, but I worry in Ryanair that there are alot of people who just dont think like that. And that's the worrying bit, lots of other FO's I know are only in it for themselves, lots of floating foreign captains bragging about their take home pay and tax free, not to mention how many I know waiting to join the (paid for) assessment queue for the next Brookfield contract for newbies with even less pay and worse conditions than I signed up to. So long as these people exist I really worry the campaign might struggle. Which is a shame, as most of the people I fly with every day are decent chaps, nice enough roster, nice aircraft - it could really be a good place to work.
So while its easy to sit and tell us all in Ryanair that we should have known better, maybe those of us who have some balls to get something done could just get on with trying to make it a better place? Even if you dont really like BALPA or the idea of a union, consider it a necessary evil - especially us FOs - who knows what it'll be like by the time we get towards command! Buy your command training for the highest bidder? Worse pay, less hours? Let's stop it before it gets any worse!
Would you sit it out with £100k of debts? Try to find another job?
No I wouldn't, but then I wouldn't get myself in such a desperate position in the first place. So you spent £100 k on your CPL/IR, do you think the World owes you a living
Quote:
I would personally gladly give up a few % of my salary
And there is the crux of the problem.
If you are daft enough to pay to fly you deserve all you get, or don't get.
You reap what you sow!
Last edited by mona lot : 11th June 2009 at 02:20.
Two days into the thread and over 4500 views. Anything to do with RYR gets a lot of interest. I for example always take a look at what the guys in what must be one of the worst airlines for employees in Europe have to say, despite being about 6000 miles from the most eastern RYR port. Why? Because what is happening at the bottom affects everyone in this industry. The low cost model, especially the RYR opereration and the activities of it's CEO have been the biggest detrimental factor on all pilot's Ts and Cs in recent history.
Michael O'Leary has been attacking Unions and threatening his staff if they strive for union representation. Why? Because he is sh!t scared of his staff becoming unionised. He knows that European law is on their side and if it happens, collective bargaining will be his worst nightmare and his overheads will go up. He has a very low regard for his employees frequently referring to them with terms such as "aerosexuals'' and seems to take delight in shafting them time and time again. And he can do it because his workforce are a disparate body and not represented properly. With new cadets, Brookfield Captains etc, he has a badly divded workforce which he knows he can manipulte easily.
For the RYR guys, BALPA representation is the best option. I'm the first to agree that it doesn't work for everyone, but the RYR guys badly need to get organised and the power of BALPA is a force to be recognised. And if the majority get on board things can only get better. And they can ignore the RYR threats - the law is on their side.
Get on board guys, and good luck!
I'm suprised that Leo Hairy Camel (an anagram of Micheal O'Leary - by the way) hasn't posted on this thread yet. He has very definate views on unions!
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