Hello Norm,
Remember me? Look I was going to type some childish post and make fun of you-but you seem to be doing fine on your own. easyNow don't get upset.
Answer me this. You are suggesting that the only difference between EZY/FR is BALPA. So what happened has easy got "worse" or has Ryan got "better" You have always suggested that easy was better-even though you have no DIRECT experience of Ryan.
Secondly would you expand on one of your own questions "Why has easy got crew food and Ryan does not"
Let me save you the trouble the answer is..ME. Yes the fantastic benefit that you enjoy was as a direct results of me, Stan, f/sphinx and all the other pilots who "founded" easyJet-not bloody BALPA. In fact we only started to pay of it AFTER BALPA got in-cheers for that.
Another point is that while easy was trying to kill me with mind warping fatigue-Ryan had already negotiated the first 5 year deal 5/3 rosters without a union. Why because they love pilots-NO -because it improved productivity and benefited the company. Back to easy. Did BALPA help with the roster. NO In fact it was one of there pre-election hooks-and the first thing to be dropped. No, instead they put all the important stuff into the hands of an unelected PC who were all old, mostly Australian and/or concerned about shares-no probs with that, except it did not represent the views of 90% pilots. Great.
NSF do you see where this is going. Even if you fly for easy for the next 30 years it will always be more mine, Stans, f/shinx and all, than yours. We set up the good bits that you enjoy now and we survived the post BALPA working environment. To quote the now CP after BALPA got in "...
well you wanted it-now you will get it.." So if you feel us to be sensitive-your damn right we are-years later I still can't get over the dreadful lifestyle that nearly finished me and my family.
So NSF do me and all the other long severed pilots out there a favour-accept that you don't fully understand the history and that must mean that your efforts to draw comparison and example from the past are flawed. Accept that you don't understand Ryanair and that you should not even mention it.
You do have a talent for talk-but remember that although you have have found your Garden of Eden-but it is yours and yours only.
We HAD to vote in BALPA at easy. Roster-pay-leave. A CEO that refused any benefit to the pilots eg staff travel to allow Continental pilots to go home-on the logic that postmen don't get free letters! Jesus. We had NO option it was that bad.
Even the most ardent hater of Ryan would have to admit that were it counts eg Roster and lifestyle ryan has it sorted. They can hitch a lift when ever which means that temporary basing plus ultra stable roster, need not disrupt a family too much. As for everything else the market is driving-then as now.
Ryan allowed me to get "better"-to get a career going again and above all allowed me to spend time with my family in a fit state. Which is personal to me and I don't impose the view on anyone else. Now maybe you can enjoy that too-but that is only a recent innovation at easy.
So any improvements you have are as a result of the early professionals-who I see every now and again-they deserve and demand YOUR respect because they saw it through-they have mine-I had to run away to save me and my family.
So have it on me and all the others Norm-keep spouting your own brand of crap-I can say that because I have been there and done that and got the Tee Shirt.