@Thunderbirdsix
There's nothing wrong with making your product cheap by eliminating free food/drinks, selling lotterytickets and fee's for using website/creditcard/bagage. If that's what people want, than Ryanair has done a great job in changing the product of flying. No bad word about that part of the story!!
But it's not about that, it's about how Ryanair is changing it's relationship with its personnel in a very drastic way by eliminating all employers responsibilities and giving its crews no financial and/or job assurance.... It's not what the pilots want, but what the company wants because it's currently their turn in a world that's overcrowded with job-seeking pilots who are willing to sell their mother to find any job in a cockpit...
Are you accepting that employers are taking advantage of this situation by letting its personnel bend forward with their pants on their knees? It's a matter of time before these employees can kiss their own ass goodbye...
If you know people who are happy working for Ryanair, than it's because they are probably on old contracts with good T&C's and work from the base they prefer. Certainly not the youngsters who are into 150K+ debts and are maybe flying only 500hr a year on a disgraceful hourly pay and traveling from hotel to hotel doing SBY's on their own expenses....
But your friends are probably those who are only looking forward sitting in a lighthouse and sadly overlooking the situation that takes place very nearby with the freshmen they fly with on a daily base....