firstly i'm no fan of David Learmount however this article is indeed well thought out and deserves consideration. The fact that Ryan air is mentioned is acedemic as this behavior is starting to become more comon in the low cost sector and I believe that it will get much worse before it gets better.The ryan air incidents are only the tip of the ice berg as some one has already said. Ryan Air and easyjet can at least afford to spend money on saftey but this ability is being squeezed every day by fly by night operators poping up all over the place. The next problem that is facing us is the corperate greed culture which is becoming more of an epidemic than "Bird flu".
Middle management types are being blinded by the potential of ludicrusly high bonus's to keep the operation cost effective whilst the commercial people are constantly lowering the prices to be competative against the "start-up of the week carrier". the frightening thing is that if the largest and most profitable loco's are starting to fail what chance do the bottom feeders have!
As far as the IAA goes I do not believe they have the resources to police a pan european carrier the size of Ryan air today, and quite frankly Spain and some of the new Eastern block Authorities have even less chance. In short its begining to get very scary in European skys these days.
Traffic is increasing at an alarming rate whilst the infastructure and support systems are crumbling around us!!