MOL, is he getting soft in his later years
 

Ryanair Won’t Force Passengers To Fly On The Boeing 737 MAX

With video interview (must be deep-fake!)

If a pilot willing to fly then so am I. Not yet known any pilots with a wish to die.

Totally agree - I work on the basis that he knows a damn more about these things then I do and is just as keen to walk off at the other end! :ok:

They have wives, girlfriends, husbands and boyfriends (often all at the same time) plus the Rolex. Worst case scenario my family will become rich.

On a different note, I wonder if anyone can answer some oddities in FR’s skeleton schedule?

There are so few flights, yet STN-Eindhoven is scheduled ridiculously early at 06:25 and Lisbon-STN arrives at 23:45. Why such extreme times, which leave the (admittedly few) pax with little transport options plus also seems to make inefficient use of staffing. Who may themselves struggle to get to/from work. Most DUB-UK routes also seem to leave very early, but at least there is a cluster of them so I assume makes efficient use of staff.

Also why does the Eindhoven aircraft then seemingly sit there doing noting until about 15:30 rather than come straight back?

I'm sure the pilots of Ethiopian and Lion Air felt the same at the time.

"Ryanair will not resume flights if it is forced to leave the middle seats empty in order to comply with social distancing rules, the budget airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary said."

https://www.cityam.com/ryanair-will-...el-oleary/amp/

I remember what O’Leary said about the U.K. if they left the EU. All the bluster and threats disappeared

Not often i agree with him, but i think he's got this middle seat issue absolutely bang on. The only way round that would be to increase prices to cover the empty seats, but then that'd likely mean that the planes wouldnt be [66%] full.

It's all a piece of bluster to make people 'feel' better about getting on an aircraft - but keeping the middle seat free would have no noticable benefit.

If the government wanted to kick start aviation, and avoid nonsense scenarios like this which would kill the sector, the only solution in my mind is to find a way to test passengers before they travel to the airport - almost like having a test 3 days before travel then self-isolating until the day if you are proven not to have it. You could have a little stamp that goes in your passport or similar to confirm.

Absolutely agree too... what happens if someone sneezes in the seat behind you (!) or needs to go to the toilet (walking up and down the aisle brushing past) - there is no 2m separation.

I am with O'Leary on this one. I posted on another thread that an analysis of the risk of contagion on flights was carried out during the SARS crisis. If you search for Air China 112 on Google you will find an example, which led to the the conclusion that there was risk of infection over multiple rows (the two row rule). I think masks for everyone may be one way to go. A basic fact that a lot of people don't seem to have understood is that the mask provides the wearer with very little protection, but everyone else is considerably better protected if that person is infectious. The example I was given was that if you get on your packed train wearing a mask you are probably reducing your risk by less then 10%, but if you and everyone else is wearing masks your risk is reduced by over 90%.

So who is going to book travel knowing that they will be obliged to confine themselves to their hotel room for three days before the homeward journey? This just isn't practical from the perspective of either business or leisure travel.

You mean a bit like assurring check in that you read the T&Cs.........

Thats a valid point - but these are all semantics. Theres no reason why it couldnt be that you cant get through security etc. without confirmation that you are clear of the virus dated within the previous couple of days. That has the disbenefit of meaning that people may still travel to the airport with the virus, though they wont be able to get on a plane.

The point, more specifically, is that leaving the middle seat free is purely a psychological gimmick, with no real benefit to passengers and significant costs to all parties.

If aviation is to get going again, it either needs a full release of restrictions (as in back to pre-virus days) or some form of control of passenger flows to avoid the virus getting on a plane in the first place (hence the idea above, and thousands of alternative methodologies along similar lines). A full release of restrictions is probably only likely once the virus has been all but eliminated (i.e. not soon). Some form of control could instead be implemented in short order, and get the economy moving again. But it needs to be robust.

The proposal to keep middle seats free has no merit. Many people travel in groups (families, couples) who live together. They don't need to be separated, so it is a waste of capacity to cordon off centre seats. The solution may be a small programme incorporated into the booking engine where seats are allocated. this could be programmed to leave a pre-set gap between discrete parties. It would enable airlines to incentivise bookings of 2, 3 and 4 people together, as they would not require separating. Of course, it would rely on groups not living together to declare themselves separate.

All very good until the passengers are forced to board a crowded bus at some foreign airport because the aircraft has parked away from the terminal.

In the not so old days there was a curtain between cattle class and the front of the airplane. A curtain that could be set on any seat row depending on how many was booked in each cabin class.
Wouldn't a curtain between each and every row of seats negate the need fo distance. A relatively cheap solution that already exists and just need to be bought in in numbers. Maybe even a curtain between seats in the same row could be added for your own little cocoon. Certainly something a thrifty airline exec could put together a sample of, photograph and suggest to the relevant authorities. Instead of just complaining, threatening and then leave the initiative to overcarefull politicians decicions.

When that is said there are constant pictures of jam packed flights in Norway with all seats occupied every day now due to few flights available.

Btw LTNman, you can avoid touching your face during a short busride and disinfect your hands afterwards, but during a multihour planetrip ....

So who disinfects these between sectors ? What material would you guarantee that Drunken bum who sneezed a lot would not live a single trace of any infection anywhere ?

Flights will resume, people will catch it and majority of people will recover. just like every single other virus that is out there and currently exists and nobody knows about.

So you're saying that anybody aged over about 60 shouldn't fly with Ryanair ? Then again, that's probably quite accurate - they are an airline for people who are able to look out for themselve; I felt bad when I dragged my Dad onto a 1h30 flight when he was 70 - I realised that even with me watching out for him that he was too old to put up with them

The guaranteed no infection left behind is not possible with the existing seat configuration either, so just a distraction.
And a "majority will recover" statement is nearly as bad as saying the majority will survive the flight. That don't fly with most.

If you want to be difficult there exists a selfdisinfecting cloth for masks, made in Israel, that uses copperpowder from a norwegian factory, that kills the virus.
But I'm sure there could be found cheaper and easier solutions. I'm thinking wipe down vinyl or quick change and boilwash. Unless one thinks the world now only consists of problems and for anything to work in the future it has to be like before.
What is better; a thorough clean between flights or max 2/3 capacity, or even less if one in addition to midle seat starts with leaving rows free also.
The ones that adapts will be the future winners, like always. Are you ahead of the game you even get to design the solution. I remember Ryanair engineering used to have a sewing unit for seat repairs, that probably could put togheter a sample.