Open your eyes up to the following:
Ryanair, according to ITA, the world's largest international passenger carrying airline. Arguably one of the most successful airlines in the history of aviation with the highest growth/expansion rate ever seen in the world. An airline with a 200 strong fleet of aircraft with average age of just 2.5 years. Boeings biggest customer outside of the US. Boeing biggest customer since 2001.
Ryanair is clearly a spectacularly successful airline which could've only succeeded with a fantastic business model and good ideas. An airline which is at this present time unchallengeable.
Growing up as a wannabe over the last 10 years one thing sticks out like no other. And that is the amount of people who view Ryanair as a whorehouse where they know they will get treated dirty but can very quickly move on to achieve that goal that everyone aspires to but elsewhere.
So then, what has Ryanair got to lose by keeping its work force happy? Which the vast majority obviously aren’t. Why threaten, persecute and reduce your workforce to nothing when all they want to do is have a healthy career with your very own airline? Your workforce wants a career which they can look forward to; enjoy without getting overworked and underpaid. One with which they are treated with respected. What is the logic in denying these basic needs that so many other airlines provide? Is the answer money? Well to some extent, obviously yes. But is it so much money that is at stake here? Are Ryanair really going to lose so much money here that their profits are going to plunge? Again, is the worlds most successful airline so reliant on the abuse of it's employees for money? Sure every company does it to some extent, but does Ryanair, the airline of airlines, have to continue to do this even though it's financial position is described daily as: "yeah whatever, €xx billion in the bank!” If so, then the Airline is already in deep trouble. If not, then I ask again, what's the problem? Isn’t employee happiness an investment?
Most successful companies of Ryanair’s size are people investors, they invest a great deal of time and money in keeping all of their work force happy and content (long term profit, low attrition and company stablisation as opposed to quick profits at the demise of everyone else and the airlines reputation). They recognise that providing job security (as opposed to obscure contracts and threats of termination) and a healthy work environment is the key to nurturing a bond between worker and employer. Most companies openly view their success as a product of what their workforce has achieved. Have you ever heard such words from Ryanair?
At the end of the day, the airline, a private company is what it is as a result of the directions its driven in by a few select powerful people. This could change overnight but it wont. So what is Ryanair’s problem? It’s quite different to other airlines but quite common in the big old corporate world – Corporate Greed. That international conglomerate disease that should be feared by all because it hands disproportional power and money to people who are corrupted by power and money - a few hand select people at the top. That’s all it is. There can be no other reason for Ryanair’s behaviour towards its own workforce. It is the corporate greed of a few people that results in reduced working conditions for all below them but increased personal profits and bonuses for themselves. What more is there to say?