I think Stan Woolley just about hit the nail on the head when he made the comment that airlines are all the same.
We would all love to work for that perfect airline that doesn't exist. I personally have a wardrobe full of uniforms from airlines that went under.
I absolutely loved working for Fred Laker and thought he was a pretty good boss. What happened? Another uniform in the wardrobe!
I watched what happened to PanAm, Tigers and TWA while I was working in the States. No doubt those who got to put their uniforms in the wardrobe then, at one time thought they had arrived when they were working for those wonderful airlines (any comment BelArgUSA?)
After another uniform ended up in my wardrobe, I decided that I had to work for a predator for a change and stop worrying about staff travel and such niceties that don't really matter when it comes down to it. Luckily, this was a good change of tack and my next job lasted for 19 years until I retired.
During that time I watched the likes of SABENA and Swissair go down the toilet (whilst still going on strike for this and that).
We all know that MOL is an ars*hole and that he is not the sort of person that you would invite home to meet mummy. However, he is a pretty successful predator and has so far kept a lot of pilots in reasonably well-paid work with stable rosters. I can imagine that the Ryanair management is not too good in the "touchy-feely" and "let's be nice to each other" department but I have proved in the course of my long career that flying for nice people can be positively damaging to your health!
Would you rather work for the likes of SilverJet, Zoom or XL perhaps? I'm sure they were all great fun but great fun does not impress the bank manager (nor, for that matter, do nice "thank you letters" from the MD for a job well done).
Last edited by JW411; 9th Mar 2009 at 17:30.