IAA deal with Ryanair over pilots concerns after C4 program
Air watchdog dealt with Ryanair over role of pilots
The Sunday Independent (Ireland), Sunday February 19th, 2006
(c) 2006 Independent Newspapers Ireland Ltd
THE Irish Aviation Authority has said it has "engaged with Ryanair" over the role of its pilots, after getting dozens of letters from pilots worried about their professional status with the low-cost airline. The pilots warned that they may no longer be able to comply with the conditions of their licences because they may, in effect, be compelled to fly while it might not always be safe to do so. They asked the IAA to support them in restoring their ability to make critical cockpit decisions.
Last week, the IAA said that Ryanair had agreed to "re-affirm the authority of the captain, and a document to this effect has been sent [by Ryanair] to all pilots". The IAA will continue to monitor the situation.
"We have recently reaffirmed the authority of the captain, which has always been Ryanair policy," a company spokesman said. He denied that its management pilots were influenced by commercial concerns.
"Management pilots in Ryanair are not involved in any way in the 'commercial operations' of the airline. The duty of management pilots in Ryanair is to ensure that we run a safe operation at all times," he said.
The unprecedented move by the pilots came in the wake of last October's disciplining of a Ryanair captain for refusing to take on extra flights because he said he was fatigued. Ryanair demoted him to co-pilot status.
The issue featured in last Monday's Channel 4 Dispatches expose of Ryanair, where a pilot is filmed referring to the demotion as an example of what could happen if he failed to follow strict company policies.
According to pilot sources, the demoted captain had just completed his rostered flights over a five-day period when he was asked to take on an extra return flight. The man is reported to have claimed he could not fly because he was fatigued, but Ryanair management said other issues were also at play.
It is illegal for pilots to fly while fatigued and, according to correspondence seen by the Sunday Independent, the IAA subsequently wrote to the demoted pilot telling him that, if he was indeed fatigued, he acted properly, adding that "such operation would have constituted a hazard to flight safety".
The IAA has said it is investigating the matter further but has also warned the former captain that, under Ryanair rules, he had "responsibilities for the management of fatigue", which might also have applied in his situation.
Ryanair said it could not comment on an individual case. A representative of the Ryanair pilots said they wrote to the IAA because they were concerned that management interprets the fitness-for-duty rule as expecting pilots to be always fit and ready for duty, and makes no allowance for genuinely tired pilots who now fear disciplining or even dismissal.
"We don't 'interpret' the fitness-to-fly rule," a Ryanair spokesman said. "Our ops manual makes it clear that no pilot should fly if he considers himself unfit to do so."
The pilot spokesman said they feared a repeat of last September's incident, when a co-pilot had to take emergency control of a Ryanair jet approaching Rome because the captain failed to cope with the demands of the landing. It emerged that the man had reported for duty just days after the funeral of his young son.
"In fairness to Ryanair, there may have been a good explanation for why he came back to work so soon," said one of the pilots. "But we also have to ask the question - did he feel compelled to come in because he feared his job was at stake?"
There has been a string of safety incidents in recent years, which some pilots say point to a deteriorating safety culture in Irish aviation. The president of the Irish Airline Pilots Association, Captain Evan Cullen, last month told Flight International magazine: "There is no doubt that the safety margins in Irish aviation have been eroded."
Some incidents have affected Ryanair but there have also been incidents in other Irish airlines which, say pilots, point to growing pressure on air crew attempting to cope with the increasing demands of low-cost operations being rolled out by all Irish airlines, and attempting to reduce aircraft turnaround times in line with Ryanair's 25 minutes, and to increase staff productivity.
Ryanair needs to be the subject of a special safety audit concentrating on "human factors", the influential aviation magazine Flight International, has said.
In the past 20 years, there hasn't been a single death in an Irish airline accident, but there have been more than a few lucky escapes in Ryanair. Last month marked the 20th anniversary of the last total loss of an Irish aircraft, an Aer Lingus Shorts 360 which came down in a field near East Midlands Airport on January 31,1986.
All survived, with only a few minor injuries. Ice was blamed but human error, potentially a far bigger killer, has played a greater role in other Irish aviation incidents since. (See panel, right.)
Probably the next most serious accident befell a Boeing 737 operated by Futura Air, then an Aer Lingus subsidiary. Its nose-wheel was sheared off and the fuselage was badly damaged in a flawed landing during gales at Shannon in the early Nineties. There were no injuries.
Similar luck has attended many other incidents affecting Irish aircraft over the past decade, any one of which could have had serious consequences. Loss of cabin pressure, which led to the pilots passing out and the deaths of 121 in the Helios Airlines tragedy in Greece last August, is one of the biggest causes of concern.