Dear Marco
Your first programme was based on no evidence whatsoever, other than false claims made by
unidentified persons in darkened rooms precisely so their false claims could not be
tested. This is a new low for so called "investigative journalism".
We note that your two new claims are equally untrue and unsupported by any factual
evidence whatsoever. We now answer these false claims as follows:
1. Since Ryanair pilots can only fly a max of 900 hours per year (an average of just
18 hours per week, compared to most peoples' 40 hours per week), any Ryanair pilots
(regardless of whether they are direct employees or contractors) that miss a flight due to
illness can easily replace those flights before the end of the year and so no pilots lose
any pay for being "unfit to fly". Ryanair also requires pilots to declare if they feel
unfit to fly in which case they will be replaced by other standby pilots and such
certifications happen routinely.
Please ask your anonymous contributors to provide evidence of their flight hours in the
last 12 months which will confirm that they suffered no loss of pay as a result of being
unfit to fly at any time. These claims are simply false which is why you have provided no
evidence to support them.
2. Your first programme was completely untrue. Ryanair's fuel policy allows pilots
to take as much fuel as they want, and neither you nor your anonymous contributors
provided any evidence to the contrary, or any evidence of this so called "pressure".
The only pressure placed on Ryanair pilots is to fly safely, which is why each Ryanair
captain has full discretion on how much fuel they take.
You have also been misled about Ryanair's fuel league tables which rank only fuel burn per
month and not fuel loads per flight. The sole purpose of these tables is to encourage
pilots to fly safely (i.e. at the correct heights and speeds), they do not rank fuel loads
or extra fuel taken.
As these false claims demonstrate, your first programme and your second programme lack any
evidence whatsoever and are based solely on false claims made by anonymous contributors
who are unwilling to identify themselves precisely because these claims are untrue.
The factual position is that Ryanair has an unblemished 28 year safety record, the only
pressure placed on our pilots is to fly safely and as confirmed by the recent
Irish/Spanish safety authority statement Ryanair's safety is "on a par with the safest
airlines in Europe."