Ryanair have had a luxury with their FOs for the past number of years - the luxury being it has too many of them! Crewing on that front presents no problems and has probably resulted in a 'slow down' of recruitment. I still expect that FR will always remain 'top heavy' with FOs because it remains a high source of revenue and by in large costs them little or nothing to have them on their books. The only issue may be that there is a gulf in experience being created across FOs. Plenty of those between 500 - 1000hrs, fewer betweeen 1000 and 2000hrs and even fewer between 2000 and 3000hrs plus. I was recently informed (not gospal) that the upgrade success rate lies around the 50% mark. If that's the case then there will be a number of FOs staying in the RHS until they can enter the upgrade process again. I believe the time from failure to re-entry has been extended as well.
The training department has decided that the majority of training will be internal. TRs are being conducted at East Mids and OCCs at Stansted (largely due to cost and standardisation). A few TRs, but nothing compared to previous years, are still conducted at CAE with Ryanair's own TRIs/SFIs. I would imagine Ryanair have had CAE 'over a barrel' on cost as they have had a number of issues with CAE over the past few years. OAA probably went out the window because they are no longer cost effective. I think the only training provider claiming 'bonanza status' at the moment is FR!!
Time can only tell whether the 'cadet only' recruitment policy will have its consequences. Its a cash generator first and foremost, and thats the underlying strategy. If the training department felt it was proving detremental to expansion plans then this would have been voiced to management. However it seems that the airline aren't having any real problems in picking up OCC candidates that will fill the holes created by its own upgrade process and retention rates (obviously at a very low net loss).
My guess is that they will continue with OCCs (because they can) and continue to recruit cadets (because they can). Time to command internally will take longer (due to FOs flying less hours per annum) and may eventually dry up. After all no deal has been done with Boeing and MOL has already spoken about running the airline for cash. The expansion bubble has to burst at some stage and shareholders will be looking to be paid dividends eventually.
Last edited by Callsign Kilo; 27th Jan 2010 at 14:47.