Just returned from a very pleasant couple of flights with Ryanair on a day trip to Dublin from Gatwick with Mrs Fletcher and some mates. Very impressed by the cabin crew - and the trumpet message announcing another on-time arrival made the whole flight roar with laughter! It just reminded me of the tragedy of good people in a potentially great airline being stuffed by a nasty piece of work in charge. Ryanair are very reminiscent of a tree full of Koala Bears - when you are at the top looking down all you can see are dozens of happy, smiling faces. When you are at the bottom looking up, all you can see is a bunch of rear ends!
Forgetting the selfishness of individuals or not - there is a serious issue here that is so vital to grasp. If all you have is a pile of people looking after number one and who will not pay 1% of their salary to BALPA, IALPA or whoever - there is only one end to it. That attitude guarantees that O'Leary and his hideously immoral view of his own employees will always prevail. Life requires checks and balances. At Ryanair right now there is an unstoppable force in the form of O'Leary - there is no immovable object in the form of a union to oppose him. Consequently anything can and will happen to destroy people's lives. At easyJet, we are no different - our employers would leave us in the street with nothing if they could. Indeed, they actively wish to! The big difference is that we have a balancing force in the form of BALPA. It is far from perfect - our membership is still not sufficiently high to provide the necessary opposition that will soon be required. Nonetheless, the dire excesses that are on display at Ryanair have thus far been prevented. I am not anti-Ryanair per-se. What I am anti is the abuse of a fantastic workforce which is so preventable by the presence of a responsible trade union.
Why can the majority of Ryanair's pilots not see the direct correlation between no union and the violent, continual attacks on their terms and conditions. Looking after number one simply does not work - it is the wrong approach. What works is standing together to fight a common enemy. Why be a bunch of sheep, each one more terrified than the next, keeping its head down hoping the sheep dog will get someone else and not them? If even half a dozen sheep bandied together the sheep dog would lose! It can be different - I want Ryanair to be a huge success for all their employees and not just a few. It could be so different - 1% of your salary is nothing in the current crisis.
Best of luck to one and all.