When I used to work for the Irish state carrier there was a lot of slagging off reference Ryanair. They said they would go bust in a year. That was in 1994. Oh how wrong you can be! Ryanair has gone from strength to strength and we have to respect them as a growing business force in European air travel. It's time to stop putting them down and to actually learn from their success. How panicked the Aer Lingus pilots must feel at the moment. Facing a strike situation whilst their rivals blossom in these hard times. It's time the state airline's pilots stopped pretending about their redundancy package, working conditions, etc., and started thinking about the long term future of their company.