Ex-Ryanair skipper here who left the company in the past year.
The company has many issues and it's not for everyone, but most of the second-hand accounts you hear are bull****.
Discretion is not a problem, I have refused discretion before with no consequences, as have other captains at my base. Ops won't be happy about it, but you won't be brought in for disciplinary action.
Same for sickness and fatigue, I think I called in sick between 2-14 days per year over my time at Ryanair and I was only called once for a welfare check and to remind me to file sick paperwork that I had forgotten.
FTL numbers are not adjusted purposely, if significant delays are foreseen, say the aircraft you were supposed to take went tech down route, they will delay your report time. The system is mostly automatic with electronic flight plans and journey logs, occasionally, submitting the electronic paperwork can adjust the recorded times as they overwrite the manually adjusted times by ops. A call to crew control fixes this.
The company has cleaned up its act over the years as it's grown and is a massive operation and when things go wrong there are never enough ops controllers to deal with the fallout.
In response to OP's question:
- Salary is very dependent on base, post-unionisation and AOC split each country has its own payscale, contracts etc. I believe the Italians have the best contracts due to Italian tax law. The Polish/eastern Europeans are all self-employed with high net pay but no direct employment protections etc etc.
- The kind of flying is also very base dependent, the Italian bases mostly run like regional airline rosters with lots of domestic flights, mostly 4 sector days. The big bases have the largest variety of flying but also standby's there cover other bases also. The smaller bases you'll fly with the same faces every day though less variation in routes.
- Command upgrades are generally at 3k hours/900 in the company (don't quote me on the second part) I believe, you'll be pressured into it if they think you're ready. Though if you're in one of the niche positions where they have issues with FO cover, such as Ryanair UK at the moment, they'll delay as much as they think they can.
- Base transfer is based on seniority/date of application. You can apply for a base transfer and you'll be bottom of the queue, though once a year it refreshes in order of seniority. Their favourite line is "base allocation is not base transfer" so you may find new hires and upgrades getting to your base ahead of you.
- Ops, the pilots and cabin crew you work with will be fantastic, you get the occasional oddball, like every airline. Management on the other hand varies from incompetent to toxic, and if you ever have the displeasure of dealing with them, you'll understand why so many eventually leave.
- The training is stellar and can fault nothing in the training department, it's a well-oiled machine and probably the largest ATO in Europe. There are far far more SOPs than most airlines, and they want everything done in their specific ways, at least during line checks and SIMs. On the line if something goes wrong and you weren't following SOPs, say flying a visual or circling in your preferred method, you take the blame.
- Management view you as a resource to be used efficiently and a cost to be minimised instead of an asset. Expect to fly up to 900 hours a year, if a duty is legal, expect to operate it. If and when the tide turns on pilots supply and demand, expect them to cut Ts and Cs as they did during COVID. The business is run ruthlessly, which is great for investors and **** for employees. We were the last to get pay rises and the first to see pay cuts in comparison to our colleagues at other airlines.
That all being said, it's what works for you, if you're Italian, Polish or Spanish, Ryanair is probably the best-paying employer if you want to live at a regional base in your country and be home every night. It's a great airline for the beginning of your career as it exposes you to a variety of operations and situations, the training is great and if you can handle it for 6 years, you'll be a skipper with five thousand hours bond free. In my experience, most OCC captains don't last more than 2 years before they leave, FOs generally hang around longer. There's a reason they're casting a wide net and doing roadshows in South America and Africa.
Think about what it is you want, if it's to live at home or at a specific city or a fast command and PIC hours, Ryanair is the right place for you.
Edit: I just noticed you're in the Southern Hemisphere, most of the OCC Brazilians/Ecuadorians I've flown with love it here compared to their previous job at Copa. So if you're there, it's not a bad transition! If you can squeeze a Spanish/Portuguese base out of Ryanair, I think you won't regret the move.
Last edited by ser; 21st Aug 2023 at 07:28.