Hi All,
I worked for Ryanair a few years ago before decamping to sunnier climes and the major reason was that I could see the writing on the wall then!
There has been a culture at Ryanair for many years of eroding the Commanders authority, with he or she quite clearly being required to have the burden of responsibility.
The SOP's are a good example! Yes extremely thorough, but unnecessarily onerous when compared to standard boeing. The companies attitude was that theirs were better, that is fine but is it wise to bin years of research that companies like boeing have done to provide a safe baseline for the operation of their aircraft.
The cynic in me would suggest that as Ryanair as an airline DO EXPECT A HULL LOSS AT SOME TIME procedures and systems should be in place to try and shift the burden of responsibility to a crew. What better way as saying they didnt adhere religiously to our SOP's and therefore while unfortunate, not our blame to shoulder.
Ryanair is a really unpleasant place to work, the quite unnecessary stress put on crews as a means of control, harking back to victorian mill owner values.
Hopefully within a few months the authorities will be minded to take a really close look at this airline before something dire befalls customer and crew alike
