As a permanent employee of Ryanair is true my t and c's are different from contractors and as I have said times before I dont go out of base at all, yes I pay for my medicals, hotac for sims, loss of licence, petrol money to sim centre but then I get £5000pa allowance to cover all the above on top of my basic salary and flight pay. But i dont get a no delay bonus as someone asked, such a thing doesnt exist. Dont give them ideas.
As for the fuel policy I dont believe its any different from any other airline in Europe however there is a perception among some of our pilots that their is some pressure from management. But not by me and most of friends in my base. I think some of this is a self fulfilling prophecy and if you hear it enough times from other pilots you start to believe it despite perhaps never having coming across it yourself.
Have management revamped the fuel policy - yes - but only to ask us to justify our extra fuel carried above the min instead of plus 300 above min. But thats it and all of a sudden we have a fuel issue in Ryanair.
The truth is that if someone asked me if I get treated well in Ryanair I would probably say no but then I can't say I get treated badly. Ryanair does what it says on the tin no more no less. Fixed roster, ok money, new planes but then I am not a contractor.
However the way I read that management treat out contractors which are now the majority is coming back to haunt them but its does us no favours when the rest of our own industry run us down. We are a safe airline with excellent training, high standards, new aircraft and good pilots. And I can assure you they are good pilots when you consider some of the s++t holes we fly. No radar, no ils, circling, snow covered runways and so on, it does sort the men from the boys despite what people may believe.
Wouldnt we all like to work for a major airline but we all can't and lets face it Ryanair, Easyjet, Norwegian, Air Berlin and the like wouldnt even exist if the legacy carriers hadn't underestimated the locos and opened a space in the market for them with their high fares and cartels. I think they all thought we would go the way of Laker. Not so.
But please dont confuse me with management. I am a professional pilot and do not accept second best from myself or any pilot I instruct or examine. We are not Ryanair management but you choose to assume we are like them. I repeat we are not...................