Further, you're getting side-tracked on the 6/3 5/3 comparison again.That and working harder on duty days to have more time off.
Again refer to a previous post about the mathematics of annual duty days. Briefly put, assuming 4 sector days and 6 -6.30hrs flying per day, you can only fly 135- 150 days per year. If you want a pattern, that productivity can be achieved in 4 ON 4 OFF.
With efficient rostering it is not necessary to strap an a/c to your backside for more days. What is tiring is going to work to prduce very little. I don't know if it is still the case, but it was not uncommon to report at 05.00, fly 2 sectors for 2.30 hrs and go home having produced 4.30 hours of work. A complete waste of time. Either that or position in taxis or on own a/c to operate 1 or 2 sectors. Spend upto 12 hours on duty to produce 3 - 4 hours flying. Again, a waste of time. Where RYR get it right is maximum flying when on duty. The average day is 9 hours during which they fly (usually) 4 sectors and produce 6 hours in the air. A duty day is not often wasted. It's not a case of fly more and earn more, therefore everybody is happy to work harder; you can not produce more than 900 pa so you know what you income might be. MOL does not like pilots doing less than mid- 800's, so you know what your likely minimum income will be. I hear that many EJ pilots produce mid-700's and are still kanckered. That is a real LOSE LOSE. Company is losing money and crews are losing life.
A max 10 hour day with 14 - 16 days per month will produce the required amount of stick time. If there is an attitude within an airline that crews must be on duty for the max days, and near max hours each day, then there is going to be real problem People don't survive that for very long. That will again cost the company money in repalcements. If my calculations are accepted as correct. i.e. max 150 days flying per year to produce the flying hours, why does ej have a rostering ideal of 235 flying duty days per year per pilot? What do they do with the extra 85 days and yet still only achieve +/- 800 hours per pilot? If each RYR pilot produces 1 month's flying productivity more than ej that tells you something about their relative cost base, and they do it in less duty days per year, as well.
It could still be improved with 4 ON 4 OFF. Don't necessarily aspire to achieve 5/3 just because RYR pilots say it is better than 6/2 or 6/3. It's just the best of a bad lot. It too can be improved.
And in Italy, been there, done that. Doing it on longhaul is the road to an early grave. Hell on earth or rather 35,000'. How they have managed to keep such sweat shop conditions in the EU and 21st century only they can tell you. But please don't the crews in Italy try to distract the argument by pointing out how lucky the UK crews are relative to themselves. That will never be a argument for any topic.