After a quick look through this entire discussion three things strike me.
First, a Chief Pilot who makes a statement in which he appears to demonstrate ignorance of the impact of deficient lighting on low visibility proceedings (post # 85) - with not a comment from anybody!
Second, a Hairy Camel whose post was completely off subject. While it was vintage Leo, it is worth reading his contributions in the light of the violence of his point of view. Anyone who has personally been on the receiving end of MOL's vitriol may sense an identical ideological orientation. Which raises the question as to why such an intervention took place.
Unions have nothing to do with the particular characteristics of the events giving rise to this discussion. There is a definite sense in Leo's post that unions were responsible for these matters being publicly identified. But if you look at it, this seems rather unlikely - since other events gave rise to these things coming into the media, most particularly Flight's reaction to the publication of a report of an AAIU investigation. (Not to mention the fact that something around 1,500 pilots have receive a copy of the "leaked" Board document many months ago).
Finally, the entangling of the "union bashing" and the safety issues has worked to a degree in muddying the waters and discussion.
Let's be absolutely clear about this. No matter what the truth of the matter, the position of Flight is more than reasonable. All they have done is to state the very obvious, which I take to be the following: there are grounds for being very suspicious that all is not well with safety management in Ryanair. An appropriate investigation of the many, many signs and clues of dysfunction in Ryanair is long overdue.
The responsibility for taking action lies with the Board of Ryanair and the IAA. The former clearly find the threat of dismissal to be a satisfactory safety management tool.
The IAA ... well what do they think? Does anyone know? Could they really think, like Leo, that this is all caused by unions? If so, they live on a different planet from me. There are not just whiffs of smoke here, there is a lot of smoke.