RYANAIR thoughts
Hi everyone,
I'm a continental Europe based Ryanair pilot, I'm not a native english speaker so my apologies for the many mistakes I will surely make.
Yesterday the company has put out a document in which they officially freeze every promotion and base transfer for all UK bases and in which they also threaten winter time schedule reductions , forced unpaid leave and even job cuts as they review their UK strategies.
They have mentioned a few causes: the economical downturn,the weakeness of the Sterling, the UK tourist tax and also the BALPA recognition campaign.
Now it's obviously a well thought document with which the company has started its war against their pilots and their need for a single voice with the usual threats, terror tactics, psychological warfare and all those nice things that are so dear to the Ryanair management.
On the other hand , in the same document, they write they will invest in other European countries where the business climate is more favorable; in itself not a bad thing but it sounds so explicitly just like another way of dividing the pilot community in UK and non UK based in this case.In past disputes it was Dublin and non Dublin based and other cases of division tactics along the same lines.
One thing they don't mention though is that there are around 220 cadets about to start training, not exactly a move in line with a period of crisis unless they will freeze them as well and let them go just after their self sponsored training since the company should already have a surplus of pilots according to their statements.
In my opinion it would be interesting to know how many pilots voted in favour of the recognition because if it turned out that the majority voted yes it means people are not satisfied with the present status and a wise leader would deal with the problem instead of denying it or even worse fighting against those who ask for changes; in a democracy that is of course.
Even a child can understand that the absence of any sort of opposition can make RYR managemet's life much easier so that they can take whatever decisions they deem necessary for their own and their share holders' benefit.
If those decisions happen to be taken in fortunate times then maybe the workforce can also benefit from it but when things start to be nasty then you can find yourself having to move from Valencia with your whole family without any notice nor the slightest sort of support from the company or find yourself based in a foreign country with 3 or 4 consecutive standby days making zero money on a BRK contract because the self sponsored cadets are occupying your seat costing the company nothing not to mention unwanted and last minute allocated annual leave and many many other examples of 3rd world country employee treatment.
In many cases we don't have a 5/4 but a 2/7 roster with plenty of unwanted and unpaid standby days, so the threat of going 5/2 for some could even mean good news as long as they can fly and afford paying their bills.
Bottomline is that the majority of the guys are not really happy with how things are going in RYR and this BALPA recognition initiative is just a way to oppose a stubborn management that never ever asks your opinion about anything and just makes decisions that people have to accept without having any right to speak up.
Now it seems that with its latest move the company wants to isolate our UK colleagues and I wouldn't be surprised if they were to tour the european bases even offering a couple of pennies more or a few long awaited base transfers just to divide the pilot community even further or just extending their threats to peripherical bases where the BALPA campaign is not supported by local laws and where psychological terrorism can be easily perpetrated without consequences.
I would also like to look ahead and imagine the airline in a few years from now: the plan is to grow to approximately 300 aircraft, we already have 200 so the expansion should last another 2 or 3 years where hundreds of cadets will find a job here and tens of senior F/O's will have the chance to upgrade to Captains...and then what?Once the airline has estabilished itself and internal growth inevitably slows or even stops how will we deal with our everyday issues?
The pilot community will grow older and those who once were 20 years old cadets will be 30 years old senior F/O's with a long way to upgrade ,what will then be the criteria if everyone will have the experience but there will be no seniority to go by?How will we deal with the fact that there is a surplus of F/O's because of the hundreds of self sponsored cadets who joined in previous years?How will we deal with the unfair fact that there are plenty of different contracts and T&C for the same job?How will we deal with the huge number of contract pilots whose deals last no longer than 5 years making their jobs less secure than those of the permanent guys?
As a last thought i would like to say that I sincerely believe that Ryanair has all the potential to become a leader not only in number of passengers carried or business value for its share holders but also a first class company to work for if only the management understood that they are dealing with human beings and not with puppets just like Southwest is there to prove.
I hope that the majority of the Ryanair pilots will open their eyes and stick together this time regardless of their nationality, contract, base and personal views of BALPA because this could be the last chance for all of us to show those in charge that we are not fat and happy as they like to picture us but that we are concerned about the future of our jobs and the quality of our lives and demand an active and constructive role in the growth of our company.
I also hope that BALPA will be wise enough and take this whole recognition issue well outside the UK borders because this is the first european battle of this kind and the more international it becomes the stronger the support will be as well as the media coverage.
Good luck to all of us.