GGV,
I know these are not your words but this quote from the paper is complete b@llox. Have you read the correspondence from the production company? They obviously haven't. In no way can this be viewed as 'balanced'. Just more lazy journalism.
But what the Dispatches programme is doing is seriously challenging this assumption that low cost carriers don't compromise on safety issues.
The evidence provided so far does nothing of the sort. At the end of the day, and this Steve Boulton chap said is much in the RTE interview, this is as much an attempted attack on the low cost model as it is on Ryanair. As i've said previously, I honestly believe that what they're putting forward as evidence could be found in any airline anywhere in the world.
As we know, in the UK at least, locos are subject to the same maintenence, rostering and flying reguations as the charters and legacy carriers. The 'low cost' part of it DOES NOT come from scrimping on safety. No right minded airline board would do that, as one crash and the business goes down the toilet. The only possible justification for picking on Ryanair in this regard is that they come under the auspices of the IAA but they are regularly audited by the CAA, however, so that makes that a mute point.
The damage it does to Ryanair and/or other low cost carriers remains to be seen. I suspect your first quote is near the mark on that one.