Sadly, Wayupthere may be closer to the truth than many may think.
I have no idea about the number or nature of our ( RYR ) incidents as I can't get hold of the data. And RYR somehow manage to hush things up. How many of you heard about the double engine failure at CIA, or the aircraft going off the runway at LIG for example ?
All I know is this ;
The main reasons that Ryanair don't have more accidents or incidents is, I believe, that the aircraft are new and rarely breakdown in a major way and they have autopliots fitted.
Having flown six sector days in a Fokker Friendship with no autopilot I know how your scan falls apart as you get more and more tired.
On many, many occasions whilst flying our 738s the autopilot has saved the day. I've had or known others who have had the following because they were tired ( called pilot error by management ) and/or flying into 'iffy airfields ' with few facilities;
Several near misses, good handful of runway vacations not using a taxiway, level busts due to mis-setting the MCP/mis-hearing ATC, forgetting to change freq because both of you are nodding off and not listening ( I know we've had quite a few expensive intercepts ), many loadsheet mistakes, many items missed on a hurried walkround ( big hole in rear fuseluge is the latest thing to be missed as per RYR memo a few days ago ), hard landings requiring company memos due to the ' large number of ', threats to fine pilots for wandering of the SIDs at MAD, concern by the training department over how sleepy crews ' handled ' CAT events, cabin crew reporting experiencing very rough turbulence possibly as sleepy crews can't think ahead i.r.o. wx, etc.,etc.,etc..
We've had memos about all these things and more.
We all know how we feel at the end of a sim check during an unsociable hour, like we just managed to stumble through it, and thank God the TRE didn't add anything else in requiring more than half a dozen steps in a straight forward checklist.