Getting the blindfolds off the RYR pilots
I don't work for Ryanair anymore, so technically it is not in my interest to care about those who do. Technically. The fact is, however, if a large and financially successful (billion-euro-net-profit) airline company is treating pilots like farm animals instead of professionals, the problem does not end at their side of the fence. It affects all of us, and not as indirectly as you might think.
I proposed an idea to IFALPA two years ago which I think we really should try in Europe. A "big brother" mentoring program which connects legacy pilots to those pilots at Ryanair who do not know how pilots are supposed to be treated. With regular, friendly phone contact, a Ryanair pilot could learn from a legacy pilot -- who is from his language/nationality if possible -- that he is being led down the primrose path. Only by doing such a thing can those Ryanair pilots who started as cadets (most of them) be brought out of the darkness.
If they aren't brought out of the darkness, NOTHING is going to work.
Unfortunately yes this does entail communicating to Ryanair pilots that the unions have been a colossal failure and for now should be ignored (my own theory: key people have been bought off by MOL & Co.).
Give it a thought: mentoring by actual professional airline pilots who still have reasonable contracts. If we don't do it, those reasonable contracts will soon be an endangered species.