Ryanair-10

[Rowan89]

FRA/HHN S18 schedule released:

34 new summer routes at FRA:

STN (2 daily)

ATH, BCN, GLA, KRK, LIS, MAD, BGY, OPO, VLC, TSF (daily)

MAN (6 weekly)

CTA, TLS (4 weekly)

BDS, MRS, PSA, SVQ, TFS (3 weekly)

AGA, GRO, CFU, CHQ, LPA, EFL, ACE, MJV, JMK, PGF, PEG, PUY, RJK, JTR, ZAD (2 weekly)

PMI will increase to 11 weekly flights.


1 new route at HHN:

PDV (2 weekly)

TFS will increase to 2 weekly.

[Seljuk22]

10 aircraft to be based at FRA next summer and 5 at HHN

[DublinPole]

The next chapter of Ryanair Vs Polish State Airports and LOT is now playing out and it's happening pretty much as I predicted earlier in the year.

For previous chapters in this particular story check
http://www.pprune.org/9358330-post5154.html (April)
http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airports-routes/496656-ryanair-9-a-160.html#post9426206 (June)

There is still continued talk about Polish State airports buying a majority stake in Modlin Airport, and recently the Chairman of Modlin Airport has resigned, over what is said to be plans to allow this to happen, to be replaced by an Ex LOT official who is said to be very much pro these plans and dragging his heels over any expansion plans.

In response Ryanair is now going to up domestic routes at Chopin Airport to try and hit LOT where it hurts and Michael O'Leary is now promising to fund the expansion of Modlin Airport itself, because they are (rightly) worried that the whole new chairman and ownership approach is an attempt to stifle growth at Modlin to protect LOT at Chopin Airport.

O'Leary's idea of funding the airport probably has no real prospect of happening, however it is most likely a deliberate publicity stunt to try and call out the excuse that the funding isn't available to expand Modlin which is currently being portrayed as the case.

Ryanair chce finansowa? rozbudow? Modlina - Pasazer.com (http://www.pasazer.com/news/31362/ryanair,chce,finansowac,rozbudowe,modlina.html)

Next chapter of this supposed to be imminent either this week or next to escalate this particular war, no report on how this will be yet but speculation that services will be effected.

Next chapter of this long running story has started, Ryanair will withdraw from Chopin Airport domestic flights from Warsaw to Gdansk and Wroclaw.

PPL has been allocating Ryanair the furthest posswible aircraft parking spaces from the airport building in order to make the services less competitive and there has also been long delays in ground transport to these planes that is often late and involves a 15-20 minute bus ride to the terminal via a very indirect route.

A complaint to the EU has been made.

[Seljuk22]

Malta expansion announced - 5 based aircraft with 12 new summer routes
http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryanair-launches-malta-s18-schedule-12-new-routes-as-ryanair-grows-40/?market=mt

[j636]

40-50 flights cancelled daily for the next 6 weeks.....

RYANAIR TO CANCEL LESS THAN 2% OF FLIGHTS OVER NEXT 6 WEEKS TO IMPROVE PUNCTUALITY | Ryanair's Corporate Website (http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryanair-to-cancel-less-than-2-of-flights-over-next-6-weeks-to-improve-punctuality/)

[alserire]

40-50 flights cancelled daily for the next 6 weeks.....

RYANAIR TO CANCEL LESS THAN 2% OF FLIGHTS OVER NEXT 6 WEEKS TO IMPROVE PUNCTUALITY | Ryanair's Corporate Website (http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryanair-to-cancel-less-than-2-of-flights-over-next-6-weeks-to-improve-punctuality/)

Have literally never heard of this before. Is this not a total lack of forward planning?

[LGS6753]

Why on earth has the IAA demanded a Jan-Dec leave year? Is it up to them to decide operational matters such as this?

[RAT 5]

RYANAIR TO CANCEL LESS THAN 2% OF FLIGHTS OVER NEXT 6 WEEKS TO IMPROVE PUNCTUALITY | Ryanair's Corporate Website

And I thought Alister Campbell (the smoothest spin doctor of all) had retired?????

[EastMids]

Cancelled flights do not depart on time. So if punctuality is a measure of flights that do depart on time, how does cancelling flights improve punctuality?

[vikingivesterled]

Cancelled flights do not depart on time. So if punctuality is a measure of flights that do depart on time, how does cancelling flights improve punctuality?

It will free up crew and aircraft to cover slack and increase standby's to the operating schedule, according to the article. With many short legs will a morning delay also delay the following pair of flights until it can catch up in the midday break. Since most airframes return to the same base after each flight pair, and all the planes are the same, with an extra crewed aircraft they can switch that in to operate the rest of the day's schedule on time for that line.
It's the usual; not enough pilots and planes to operate an ambitious schedule, combined with all the extra cabin bag delays and musical chairs before takeoff, to be on top of the for Ryanair marketing all important on-time statistics.

[commit aviation]

Perversely, cancelled flights don't count against punctuality. Hence why airlines will cancel them rather than delay them.

[daz211]

Seems it has already started Ryanair's Facebook page has gone mad people saying they have had less than a days notice and even some saying 4 hrs notice of delayed flights
Some people saying they have been flown out to Greece on holiday and there flight home on Monday has been cancelled and they have been offered Friday as an alternative people are asking what flights are affected so they know if they are flying or not but Ryanair are saying wait for an email if you don't get one your flight will be going ahead as normal that's a lot of stress and worry if your waiting to fly
Surly this is going to cause more problems long term for Ryanair I would rather have a 2 hour delay than not fly at all or be stranded abroad
So Ryanair is saying it's on time record is more important than fly its customers
This don't make sense to me something is going on behind closed doors that they don't want anyone to know about all I do know is there are a lot of un happy passengers already

[owenc]

Which airports are these cancellations for? I have just booked 5 return flights from Gatwick, it is a heck of journey to Gatwick so I wouldn't want to turn up for a 10pm flight and find myself cancelled.

[alserire]

Are they running out of pilots?

[BigFrank]

Cancelled flights do not depart on time. So if punctuality is a measure of flights that do depart on time, how does cancelling flights improve punctuality?



How can you be so wrong?

Cancelled flight show ZERO delays and as such help (greatly or not I leave others to say) with Ryanair's already supremely good statistics in this area.

Or so the company press releases all trumpet (sic).

[01475]

Has there been a change of personnel at Ryanair? They seem to have gone back to the bad old Ryanair lock stock and barrell!

[WHBM]

Ryanair's Facebook page has gone mad people saying they have had less than a days notice and even some saying 4 hrs notice of delayed flights
Some people saying they have been flown out to Greece on holiday and there flight home on Monday has been cancelled and they have been offered Friday as an alternative
Whatever is their regulator doing about this ? The Irish Aviation Authority should surely be up at them for not having sufficient resources to conduct their advertised operation.

The whole EU261 regulation thing was kicked off by Ryanair doing exactly the same thing, telling people on holiday on Mediterranean islands that their flight was cancelled and their options were to rebook on the next available flight a week later, look after yourself in the meantime, or get half of their return fare refunded and then be on their own.

[PPRuNeUser0176]

Whatever is their regulator doing about this ? The Irish Aviation Authority should surely be up at them for not having sufficient resources to conduct their advertised operation.

The whole EU261 regulation thing was kicked off by Ryanair doing exactly the same thing, telling people on holiday on Mediterranean islands that their flight was cancelled and their options were to rebook on the next available flight a week later, look after yourself in the meantime, or get half of their return fare refunded and then be on their own.

IAA job is to ensure they comply with x, y and z not ability to provide a service.

[WHBM]

IAA job is to ensure they comply with x, y and z
And that therefore includes enforcing, along with x, y and z, EU261. Which is clearly not happening.

Story now starting to hit the BBC

Ryanair to cancel 40-50 flights per day for six weeks - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41291483)




... due to fly from Leeds to Bratislava on Friday morning.


On Thursday night he received a text message from Ryanair, saying his flight had been cancelled.


The only alternative flight he was offered was on Monday - when he was originally due to be returning to Leeds.

So we are in Kraków & Ryanair cancel our flight home on Monday - what??? How are we supposed to get home?And still their AOC regulator in Dublin looks the other way ?

[DaveReidUK]

And that therefore includes enforcing, along with x, y and z, EU261.

That will be news to the IAA.

"The Irish Aviation Authority is responsible for the management of Irish controlled airspace, the safety regulation of Irish civil aviation and the oversight of civil aviation security in Ireland."

Who We Are (https://www.iaa.ie/who-we-are)

[daz211]

Well all I can say is Jet2 will be loving this at Stansted, today I think I counted 6x cancelled flights for Ryanair.
I'm not saying that Jet2 fly the same routes that Ryanair have cancelled but people will jumping ship from Ryanair even more than in the past.
Even jittery passengers just worried will be checking alternative websites just in case and that can only be good news for other airlines more so Jet2 at Stansted

[WHBM]

Surely an opportunity for the Chairmen of Monarch and Norwegian to get their own back and say that Ryanair must be running out of cash.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/286590/oleary-claims-norwegian-air-running-out-of-cash

[BigFrank]

Fascinating how little reaction this news engenders here. Well it is for me !

The Guardian (London) is currently quoting almost 300 000 customers affected; how does this compare to the IAG/ BA meltdown recently?

i)Does anyone know if these are the true figures?

ii) "Compare" both in numbers and in severity?

At a brief glance, and based on rapid mental calculation, closing share price in Dublin yesterday was 17.07€; down roughly 5.5% in the last 2 days.

[mrshubigbus]

About time O'Leary, smug as ever, had his come uppence! When you've got 400 737s, don't employ enough people and screw your existing staff into the ground, or should that be an early grave, then you deserve everything that comes your way! It's about time everyone involved with this industry's biggest bully started standing up to the most overbearing nasty piece of work we've seen for long time. Southwest don't do things this way! First rule of any successful business is to treat your staff well! Respect / loyalty surely count's for something? Well it did once upon a time. Maybe that was in some parallel universe somewhere? It certainly didn't spread as far as Dublin or Stansted! The sad fact is he is flying 400 737s with another couple of hundred on the way! If you'd said that was remotely possible 25 years ago, I think most folk on Pprune would have said:- "don't be silly"!? Well it's happened and O'Leary seems to unfortunately thrive on negative press reports as much has he does positive! Is this current nonsense really going to make any difference to the bottom line when you can sell seats on your aeroplanes for a tenner each way and still make money? You take your chance otherwise you book to fly with somebody else. And law of averages suggest that it'll all work out 99% of the time when you pay a fraction of what you might pay elsewhere!

[daz211]

hope this link works found via twitter today's cancelled flights

https://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/ryanair-services/cancellations.php?date=2017-09-16

[daz211]

Obviously Stansted is affected quite bad regarding cancelled flights I wonder how many cabin crew and flight deck jumped ship to jet2 when they opened a base this year and with more aircraft due for 2018 how many more will follow.

[DaveReidUK]

Fascinating how little reaction this news engenders here. Well it is for me !

The Guardian (London) is currently quoting almost 300 000 customers affected; how does this compare to the IAG/ BA meltdown recently?

i) Does anyone know if these are the true figures?

ii) "Compare" both in numbers and in severity?


The number of affected passengers sounds in the right ballpark for six weeks' worth of cancellations.

Of course it's nonsense to suggest that the effect on every one of those passengers is comparable to the BA meltdown. It's not like 300,000 passengers are going to roll up at the airport expecting to fly, only to be told on the day that their flight isn't going.

[FRatSTN]

I don't know how Ryanair can think that effectively carrying even more bags in the hold from November is going to help their punctuality. Yes it gives passengers more clarity to an extent but it's hardly a customer friendly approach.

I can't understand why they haven't just thought of allocating over-head locker space at check-in? The airline will know exactly how many people have Priority Boarding, Flexi Plus etc. By all means, give those passengers first dibs, then allocate the rest based on check-in seq. number - or even randomly?

Your boarding pass could then be issued with something like "Large Cabin-bag Permitted" or "Free Check-in Bag Permitted". That way you're not only giving people prior warning but you'd in theory totally eradicate both the scrum and baggage delays at the boarding gate.

[lagerlout]

Ryanair must have chronic crew shortage.

Even if this was to do with leave it should have been accounted for when the programme was put together.

This is utterly shambolic and 100% nothing to do with on time performance.

A disgrace. I hope every single passenger claims every cent they are due through EU regs.

[PPRuNeUser0176]

That will be news to the IAA.

"The Irish Aviation Authority is responsible for the management of Irish controlled airspace, the safety regulation of Irish civil aviation and the oversight of civil aviation security in Ireland."

Who We Are (https://www.iaa.ie/who-we-are)

Which part of that covers a staff shortage and by the way they don't regulate EU261. You can also take the case to Small Claims Court if the airline doesn't resolve it.
_____

Looks like a lot more than 50 cancelled today.....
https://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/ryanair-services/cancellations.php?date=2017-09-16

[daz211]

Ryanair stated 40-50 daily flights cancelled
But from Ryanair's website for today I count 80 that's almost double

[SeaBreeze1]

This all has nothing to do with on-time performance and very little to do with staff annual leave.

The big problem here is crew shortage. Rumour from within says RYR are losing approx 150-200 pilots and cabin crew every couple of months. Hundreds of pilots, cc and engineers went to J2 since opening STN and BHX bases alone. Approx 400 are currently work their 3months notice as we speak.

Their policy of "everybody is replaceable, you want to leave? Get out" is unsustainable and big changes need to happen...fast.

[DaveReidUK]

Which part of that covers a staff shortage and by the way they don't regulate EU261.

Read my post again.

My response "that will be news to the IAA" was in answer to the assertion that they did regulate EU261.

These are the people you need (Ireland's designated national enforcement agency for EU261):

Commission for Aviation Regulation
(https://www.aviationreg.ie/Air_Passenger_Rights/Default.83.html)

[airsound]

Ryanair to cancel 40-50 flights per day for six weeks - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41291483)
They say it's to improve their punctuality figures, which have recently slumped from roughly 90% to roughly 80%.

Other suggestions are that the change of leave year for crews has caused lots to take leave early.

Anyone know what the real reasons are?

[PPRuNeUser0176]

Read my post again.

My response "that will be news to the IAA" was in answer to the assertion that they did regulate EU261.

These are the people you need (Ireland's designated national enforcement agency for EU261):

Commission for Aviation Regulation
(https://www.aviationreg.ie/Air_Passenger_Rights/Default.83.html)

Yeah apologies, been a busy day. It was indeed intended for the other poster.

[BigFrank]

Of course it's nonsense to suggest that the effect on every one of those passengers is comparable to the BA meltdown. It's not like 300,000 passengers are going to roll up at the airport expecting to fly, only to be told on the day that their flight isn't going.

You're clear on that.

But are you right?

Obviously the people whose flights are cancelled today have (in many cases much) less than 24 hours notice.

And those tomorrow, logically, 48 hours notice. Then 72 etc.

But is this true?

Do people whose flight on Monday is cancelled now know that?

"It seems not" is what I would say.

In addition, you confirm that the Guardian figure of nearly 300 000 affected in total is correct.

Yet one poster here claims that today's cancellations by Ryanair amount to 80 flights vs the 40-50 announced.

Might that bring the total figure affected to nearer 550 000?

Always assuming the figures stay at "only" [not I confess a direct quote from any company press release] 80 per day.

[DaveReidUK]

http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airports-routes/496656-ryanair-9-a.html

[Mr A Tis]

Ryanair staff get leave? Wow.

[DaveReidUK]

Obviously the people whose flights are cancelled today have (in many cases much) less than 24 hours notice.

And those tomorrow, logically, 48 hours notice. Then 72 etc.

But is this true?

Do people whose flight on Monday is cancelled now know that?

"It seems not" is what I would say.

Fair point.

In an ideal world, given that everyone flying Ryanair has booked online, the airline would be furiously emailing anyyone who has already checked in to advise them of the cancellation before (hopefully) they have set off for the airport.

Similarly anyone attempting to check in online for a flight that RYR have decided not to operate should be informed at that point.

But then again, this is Ryanair we're talking about.

[BigFrank]

At risk of putting words into your mouth, you seem to be suggesting that "Ryanair is above the law; whether Irish or EU; for example regarding 261/2004"

Surely this cannot be the case.

Surely?

[The Fat Controller]

Pissing off a lot of people !

[RAT 5]

And what reaction from the contractors? They trip half way across Europe in their own time and at own cost to position in for a few days supposedly lucrative work. They then find, at last minute, 50% of their flights are cancelled. They sit in an hotel at their own cost on unpaid SBY and then trudge their weary way home, to be repeated. If I treated a contractor like that, i.e. they turned up at my house and I said "sorry mate, but I'm off out for the day," I would receive a bill for their wasted time.
If it is true rostering staff have bailed out (or is it crewing) how will any roster be published? No roster = no crews in the correct place at the correct time. And how does Flt OPs, or commercial, decide which flight to cancel? Is there a morning dice-rolling session?

[dusk2dawn]

A link to said recent ruling in European Court that is supposed to be the beginning of the end for MOL, please?

[airbourne]

The big problem here is crew shortage. Rumour from within says RYR are losing approx 150-200 pilots and cabin crew every couple of months.

I was told over 100 cabin crew quit in the last couple of weeks?

Scary if true!

[Piltdown Man]

I find it surprising that Europe's largest, most punctual airline and profitable airline (so we are constantly told by a certain individual) is cancelling flights. This means that they have poor planning and/or insufficient staff on standby and/or insufficient staff who they can call in on Days Off to perform their advertised flight schedule. Calling people on Days Off is normal for airlines when their back is against the wall. They can rely on staff who care about their company to get them out of a hole. Unless of course...

[tubby linton]

A link to said recent ruling in European Court that is supposed to be the beginning of the end for MOL, please?
https://www.eurocockpit.be/sites/default/files/2017-09/ECJ%20ruling%20Ryanair%20Home%20Base.pdf

[Johnny F@rt Pants]

Thread started here nearly a week ago

http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/599355-ryanair-cancelling-flights.html

[Starbear]

I think the wheels are finally coming off. (see what I did there?)

[airsound]

Sorry Johnny FP - didn't think of looking in T&E before starting this thread!

Mods - feel free to merge if you think it's appropriate....

[WHBM]

Europe's largest ... and profitable airline (so we are constantly told by a certain individual)
Given this, which is regularly trotted out by O'Leary, why don't they subcharter in ?

Bonderman still wanting too much of the profits each month ?

[Vokes55]

But most airlines offer their staff incentives to work days off. Contractors in Ryanair will only be paid their standard hourly rate, and with all pilots on and limited to 900 hours per year, there's no benefit to working outside of your five days on.

Proper companies offer their staff a day off payment. Ryanair would rather pay EU261 claims than give their staff any more money.

[Bravo Zulu]

I think the wheels are finally coming off. (see what I did there?)


Beat you to that one on the other thread! Pretty Apt though hay!!

[daz211]

But most airlines offer their staff incentives to work days off. Contractors in Ryanair will only be paid their standard hourly rate, and with all pilots on and limited to 900 hours per year, there's no benefit to working outside of your five days on.

Proper companies offer their staff a day off payment. Ryanair would rather pay EU261 claims than give their staff any more money.

This was always going to be bad for Ryanair but whoever thought they should try and fool or side step the paying passengers by putting the airlines punctuality before passengers needs and expectations, needs to be sacked, how on earth could an airline think by saying our punctuality is so important we have decided to cancel your flights just how was the paying passenger ment to take this they were never going to get sympathy but this has back fired more than any of us know.

Ryanair would have been better off spinning it with sorry we have grown so fast and our new aircraft are rolling off the production line faster than we can train staff and we apologise but we are a victim of our own success.

I'm sure it would have gone down better than on time performance :ugh:

[daz211]

So tomorrow's cancellation list is out, Sorry I'm not good with numbers but no matter how hard I try I can't make the math add up to 40 or 50 more like 80 again http://bit.ly/2y5V7L8

[KelvinD]

BBC interviewed a woman from Newcastle a couple of hours ago. She is in Wroclaw and due to fly back to Newcastle Monday. Ryanair emailed her to tell her the flight was cancelled. The passenger was unable to contact Ryanair by phone, email etc and was left with Ryanair's generous offer of a fare refund. £19.90 in her case. Taking an alternative flight is a bit tricky as Ryanair is apparently the only carrier flying between the 2 cities. Ryaniar have said that all passengers affected have been notified by email.

[vikingivesterled]

So tomorrow's cancellation list is out, Sorry I'm not good with numbers but no matter how hard I try I can't make the math add up to 40 or 50 more like 80 again http://bit.ly/2y5V7L8

Could the operations message to commercial have been lost in translation and they meant pairs instead of legs. Operationally you would probably cancel both the outbound and return in 1 transaction.

[RAT 5]

'Airline goes on strike against passengers.' We'll let you buy a ticket then cancel the flight. Now where did I see that headline. It sounds Irish anyway.

It has been said so many times that unions have the longterm best interest of a company at heart. They want to have a long career. They also want a fair deal, and that is where the discussion breaks down. A union looks further ahead than management and can see a tsunami of poo building up over the horizon and knows on whose heads it is going to land. They try to be proactive to avoid such events because it does nobody any good in the long run. Bonuses & share price might rise in the short-term, but the pressure has built up and then bang. Good unions have often had to hang 'told you so' on the factory gates.
Would a unionised RYR have been in this state? Discuss.

[daz211]

Could the operations message to commercial have been lost in translation and they meant pairs instead of legs. Operationally you would probably cancel both the outbound and return in 1 transaction.

You might be right but this makes no sense as Ryanair's flights are not sold on the same basis as charter flights where the passengers on the outbound are more or less the same people on the inbound
But again this is Ryanair trying to pull the wool over passengers eyes by saying 40 flights should mean 40 flights but it's actually 80 flights
This is a massive mess and there is no point in Ryanair trying to hide or spin this they are just digging themselves deeper in to a massive hole just wait to see the share price Monday but I guess on the bright side some people will be making a lot of money buying shares in the next few days

[LGS6753]

So, 80 flights today and 83 tomorrow.

Say 80 per day at 189 seats per aircraft at 90% load factor for six weeks (42 days). I make that 570,000 people disrupted.

If the real reason (as stated) is a requirement by the IAA to alter the holiday year, I'm sure MOL will be planning justifiable legal action against them, in which he would have a good chance of success.

Strangely, I've not heard any confirmation of this legal action.

[vikingivesterled]

just wait to see the share price Monday

Might not be as bad as one thinks. This can be a cost saving exercise over time if they are carefull sticking to high frequency destinations and cancel low load flights with alternative departures shortly before of after. It will certainly take more than their historic 1day/1week operational timehorizon.
Wonder if they ever got around integrating or transferring loads regularly from reservations to operations system, an AOCM (Automated Optimal Cancellation Module) might have been to negative a sounding investment.

[Starbear]

Beat you to that one on the other thread! Pretty Apt though hay!!

Drat! and I thought I was being so clever, I even did a quick check but clearly failed. Kudos!

[WHBM]

If the real reason (as stated) is a requirement by the IAA to alter the holiday year, I'm sure MOL will be planning justifiable legal action against them,
How long ago did the IAA announce this ? Presumably not last Friday.

So the question is why did they continue to offer such a schedule when they could see this coming and knew their resources.

[mikeygd]

It wasn't their fault, They had to change holiday accruement dates to fit in with a thing called a calendar. And obviously, it was a surprise that there was a strike in France. And also, who could predict the weather? Rain in summer? Whats next? Ground the fleet this winter because snow is forecast in Dubai?

[CaptainSensible]

The real reason pure and simple is that people are leaving quicker than they can be replaced. At long last employees and ZHC's are realising there are other options out there and have had enough. Irrespective of how they try and spin it, it is a situation of their own making. Greed has triumphed over common sense. They refuse to engage with the workforce, maybe they'll listen to the markets on Monday?

[DaveReidUK]

If the real reason (as stated) is a requirement by the IAA to alter the holiday year, I'm sure MOL will be planning justifiable legal action against them, in which he would have a good chance of success.How long ago did the IAA announce this?

I'd be surprised if it has anything to do with "holidays".

Ryanair has form, going back at least 15 years, of abusing the regulations on how many hours pilots can fly in any rolling 12-month period.

The airline used to argue (maybe they still do) that as long as the April-to-March figure is within the limit, then the number of hours flown in any other rolling 12-month period doesn't matter.

I suspect that could well be at the root of the present problem, where the current flying programme would lead to crews busting the limit for the 12 months up to the end of October.

Inquiry into Ryanair pilots' working hours (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/inquiry-into-ryanair-pilots-working-hours-1.1092872)

[fireflybob]

I'm reminded of Zig Ziglar (a US motivational speaker) who stated decades ago that the biggest mistake the (US) airlines made was to think they were in the "transportation" business yet they (in common with almost every business) are actually in the "people" business - i.e. good relationships between the company and the customers and the staff etc.

It seems little has been learned.

[RAT 5]

Inquiry into Ryanair pilots' working hours

The Irish Times says that RYR came to an agreement in mid-2016 with IAA & EASA to align its year to EASA standard of January 1st - December 31st. This has caused problems in allocating leave etc. It also says that IAA is investigating if RYR pilots had been working over legal FTL's due to a 'zeroing of hours' in April as the old financial year was dated. It also says that part of the dispute/agreement was over the definition of a calendar year as defined in FTL's. I find it astonishing that IAA is bringing this investigation about now when they approved the zeroing policy >15 years ago and therefore must have been aware of the practice. Has EASA at last proved useful on behalf of crews? And what of C/A's. They also have limits.

[PPRuNeUser0176]

I find it astonishing that IAA is bringing this investigation about now when they approved the zeroing policy >15 years ago and therefore must have been aware of the practice.

No strictly correct, you feel it's been a long running row, its really easy to delay implementing things.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/long-running-row-over-definition-of-calendar-year-behind-ryanair-cancellations-1.3223808

[TonyDavis]

Question? Is Ryanair in financial trouble?

Lots of poor excuses here. Has the expansion been too rapid and has the beast got out of control.

[greatoaks]

Its cheaper to pay pax compo than:

reward your staff
provide a duty of care for stsff
offer professional customer service
complete your contractual obligation of transporting customers
sub-contatct any available ad-hoc capacity

But in reality the end result will be:




A small percentage will vow to never fly with them again
A quick £9.99 seat sale will help most to overlook their principles and on we go again.



I do think that Norwegian should re-design one of the old Ryr adverts to dig in a little.

[DaveReidUK]

I find it astonishing that IAA is bringing this investigation about now when they approved the zeroing policy >15 years ago and therefore must have been aware of the practice.

The article from 2002 linked in my previous post makes it clear that any "zeroing" policy being approved then by the IAA in relation to FTL didn't and doesn't give Ryanair a loophole to ignore the limitation that applies to any rolling 12-month period.

"it was emphasised that, despite the permission, no pilot should go over the limit in any rolling 12-month period. It's the company's responsibility as well as the pilots' to abide by that."

[RAT 5]

"it was emphasised that, despite the permission, no pilot should go over the limit in any rolling 12-month period. It's the company's responsibility as well as the pilots' to abide by that."

Ah, but did they? The company that is? It would be difficult for a lonely pilot to refuse a roster they considered broke FTL's and lose out any contractor payments. What about type rated guys who joined from other operators, before the current winter grounding, with hours in the bank, went onto the line quickly and then were zero'd in April and worked like slaves until October. Was anyone looking out for them? It would be a nifty computer program for rostering to keep track of their individual 12 month hours; but good if they tried.

[DaveReidUK]

The article would suggest not:

"In the past fortnight, a Ryanair pilot has issued a formal complaint against the airline, claiming he had been rostered to fly for longer than the 900-hour recommended limit for a year.

Several other complaints have been made to the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA), which expressed concern yesterday at apparent breaches in safety regulations.

A spokesman for the association said one of the complainants had alleged that more than half of Ryanair pilots were working over hours."

[FlyingStone]

Ryanair has form, going back at least 15 years, of abusing the regulations on how many hours pilots can fly in any rolling 12-month period.

The airline used to argue (maybe they still do) that as long as the April-to-March figure is within the limit, then the number of hours flown in any other rolling 12-month period doesn't matter.

I suspect that could well be at the root of the present problem, where the current flying programme would lead to crews busting the limit for the 12 months up to the end of October.

I'm not familiar with any Irish differences, but in the days of the old EU OPS FTL (Subpart Q), there was no limit as to the rolling 12 months period, as it is now with EASA CS-FTL. Just the 900 block hours per calendar year and 100 block hours in 28 rolling days.

[UPS@EMA]

What was Ryanair's learjet in at East Midlands yesterday for does anyone know?

[WHBM]

Did it have a spare wheel inside ? :)

[Richard Taylor]

Surprised they didn't cancel it :E

[A0283]

Ryanair cancels flights after 'messing up' pilot holidays - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41298931)
Marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said affected customers with bookings up to 20 September had been informed."We have messed up in the planning of pilot holidays and we're working hard to fix that," he said.Most of the cancellations are due to a backlog of staff leave which has seen large numbers of the airline's staff book holidays towards the end of the year.The airline is changing its holiday year, which currently runs from April to March, to run from January to December instead.Rynanair said the shift meant it had to allocate annual leave to pilots in September and October.

Interesting to see that earlier Pprune posts explained 'that ;-)' before the airline got this message out. My compliments to the Pprune posters!

[skyloone]

I gather FR insist that pilots make a choice of months from a list and then company allocates it. 25 days leave, 15 must be taken in the one month (works out with 5/4 roster). They reduced the ad hoc days from 10 to 3 to account for reduced year. Used to only be applicable to contractors... part of the whole self employed lark. Then rolled out to all staff. Company surly knew about this a long time in advance (2016 according to press?) So either they got their maths wrong (I have my doubts) or they sold a schedule but underestimated the resignations and over estimated training capacity. Appropriate, good, stable staffing are the key to any business and FR would do well to address these fundamental issues. It must be getting expensive. As an aside I gather there's a rumour of a backlog of delivery's that are on hold due to FR not wanting to accept them at this time. Anyone with info on this?
I was asked by a relative about whether he should book a flight given the risk of cancellations.... no idea was my answer. I think he's booked with a competitor as he can't take the risk due work and therin lies another cost that's difficult to quantify..... trust!

[A0283]

@skyloone ...

From an organizational point of view this is a very interesting case. As close to an organizational systemic failure as you can get, and one which (at first sight) is completely internal from a causal point of view. With obvious and damaging external effects of course.

In general such cases have a number of cultural and personal aspects in common. Sometimes the solution is fast and surprisingly easy. In other cases ...

[01475]

I understand why they can't announce the 6 weeks worth of cancelled flights at once (and therefore have up to 400,000 people phone them at the same time), and I understand that they can't do it too far in advance as they will be making desperate phone calls and this is probably an excellent and remunerative time to be a 737 pilot, ...

But the drip feed in this way, and flying people out without them knowing if they will be flying back, is the most damaging way to do this possible. Couldn't they find a happy medium by saying that they're cancelling the following flights for the next three days + the following flights to X destination for the next 6 weeks?

[Suzeman]

As an aside I gather there's a rumour of a backlog of delivery's that are on hold due to FR not wanting to accept them at this time. Anyone with info on this?

Spotter alert :8

According to the excellent Puget Sound blog, there is only one more 737 that has flown which is waiting to be delivered . It's EI-FZZ which made its first flight on 11th September and was flown to Spokane for painting and is still there.

http://boeing-test-flights.********.co.uk/2017/09/ei-fzz-b737-800-ryanair-first-flight.html

Don't know abut any future orders, but EI-FZY and EI-GDC have both been delivered to DUB in the last two weeks and are in service.

Spotter alert OFF :ok:

[DaveReidUK]

Don't know about any future orders, but EI-FZY and EI-GDC have both been delivered to DUB in the last two weeks and are in service.

EI-GDA and EI-GDB are both due this month, plus five in October and another five in November.

Time will tell whether they show up on schedule.

[Old King Coal]

Make sure that 'subtitles' is switched on (control located on lower right side of video):

Hitler finds out Ryanair is cancelling flights - Caption Generator (http://www.captiongenerator.com/692732/Hitler-finds-out-Ryanair-is-cancelling-flights#.Wb2LeZEpuMl.mailto)

[qwertyuiop]

That is the best I've seen!

[daz211]

The problem with not publishing a list of all cancelled flights is people looking to book will not book and this will probably hurt Ryanair much longer than the 6 weeks this is the time people are looking to book summer 2018 holidays and much closer to home is the Christmas get away this news about Ryanair has spread world wide and is only going to spread on social media as more and more people get affected we are on day 2 and Facebook and Twitter is full of horror stories the last one I read was a family of four yesterday rejected from the security area in Alicante as their flight was cancelled (no email or text regarding the cancelled flight home) staff at the Ryanair desk could only offer a flight in one weeks time to an alternative UK airport.

I just can't see many people booking any flight with Ryanair until the 6 weeks are over and things are back to normal even then if I was going to book with Ryanair I certainly would not book anything to the new year at least

Just how much is this going to cost Ryanair in refunds EU compensation and lost bookings due uncertainty I'm not saying people will never fly with them again once the £4.99 seat sales pop up but already I would imagine booking for the next 6 weeks must be down dramatically.

[BCALBOY]

The EU flight compensation of eu250 ,is only applicable if the cancellation is advised within 14 days of departure, so I would expect Ryanair will be doing all possible to advise passengers travelling in Oct as soon as possible to avoid incurring liability.

The fact that these September cancellations are being advised so close to departure ,suggests the resource shortages have only been identified as critical very recently i.e within the last few days ,otherwise I'm sure they would have adised Sep canx at least 14 days in advance,even if on a rolling basis , to avoid this element of liability.

[WHBM]

The fact that these September cancellations are being advised so close to departure ,suggests the resource shortages have only been identified as critical very recently i.e within the last few days
Still doesn't explain why they don't subcharter in, which is what other carriers would do in this situation, and in fact Ryanair has done plenty of this in the past. The Lithuanian/Baltic contract operators always have spare capacity, and the peak holiday season has passed.

[01475]

I presume they wouldn't be daft enough to do this if anyone at all has any spare capacity, and that their bar is going to be set somewhere roughly equivalent to the EU's no fly list?

[alm1]

I presume they wouldn't be daft enough to do this if anyone at all has any spare capacity

I am pretty sure that it is possible to find 400*2%=8 planes for wet lease in October. That is not August.

[Vokes55]

But the crew shortages are across all bases, so it wouldn't solve anything. You can't split 8 aircraft between 80 bases, whenever they're needed.

And this is why they can't tell the public which flights are going to be cancelled, as they simply don't know which crews are going to go out of hours and when.

[alm1]

Many of their bases are not too far from each other and crew could commute. And I am sure for paltry couple hundred thousands euros some IT shop could count and optimize it all within few days.

[01475]

I am pretty sure that it is possible to find 400*2%=8 planes for wet lease in October. That is not August.

That assumes that they only needed 10ish (the cancellations so far have actually been more than the 2% they said) in the first place. Maybe they actually needed 18 and are already using the 8 they could find?

I'd like to hope that apart from reducing the levels of customer contact to something closer to what they can cope with, one of the reasons for not giving advance notice is that they're trying to beg / borrow / steal as many crew / wet leases as they can?

[BCALBOY]

Now they are working to the new rules ,they should be able to calculate which pilots are in danger of breaching the annual 900 hours cap fairly easily.

So I would surprised if they don't identify Oct cancellations within the next few days.

The canx they have published up to 20Sep are not spread across 80 bases.

[Vokes55]

I don't understand why you've bought their story about 'new rules'. This is nothing to do with 'rules', they don't have enough pilots. Period. They don't know which flights are going to be cancelled, because they don't know who is going to call sick, who is going to go out of hours because of a delay, who is, god forbid, going to call fatigued, who is going to fail their command check.

Simple fact is, they have nobody on standby. Anybody on standby is only there because they don't have enough hours to be of any use during their five days on. So no, don't expect them to identify their October cancellations in the next few days, and don't expect them to Wet lease aircraft that will sit idle in Stansted whilst a flight from Bari is cancelled.

[BCALBOY]

If you know there is a resource shortfall , you need to remove a sufficient number of flights to protect the rest of the flying programme.

You decide which flights to cancel and create a pool of pilots who can be assigned as and when required.

It would be nonsense to wait until there is a problem with a specific pilot
and then cancel the flight they happened to be rostered on, otherwise you could end up cancelling a service 100% full and operating one only 50% full.Or operating a flight to somewhere easily accessible by other means like Beauvais and cancelling a flight to Tenerife.

You manage the resource you have to operate the flights you want to operate.

There is a big incentive for Ryanair to get the cancelled flights published asap,it will save on compensation and in addition people will be very reluctant to make a new booking on Ryanair up to end of Oct while there is a possibility the flight
may be cancelled.

[BigFrank]

Or operating a flight to somewhere easily accessible by other means like Beauvais......

Another corker for my list of Oxymorons:


Military intelligence
Business ethics
easily accessible by other means like Beauvais

[maxred]

Another corker for my list of Oxymorons:
Military intelligence
Business ethics
easily accessible by other means like Beauvais

Nice one Big Frank........have you ever been in the Irish bar at Beauvais Airport on a Friday night? Truly wonderful.....

I also would have liked to have been at the meeting when this was first raised to MOL as an operational issue .....

[BigFrank]

Due on Thurs 21st September.

http://investor.ryanair.com/agm-2017/

Though obviously the effect may be different when you click here later.

[Economics101]

Assuming that the cancelled flights amount to about 2% of all seats, the effect of reduced bookings for the remaining 98% of flights (over six weeks) could well outweigh the direct compensation costs to those whose flights have been cancelled. And this ignores any further long-term reputational damage.

You don’t have to be a business genius to figure this out.

Would it make sense for Ryan air create some space for itself and minimise the effect on bookings by announcing now which flights will be cancelled over the next 6 weeks and guaranteeing the rest? To ensure the guarantee it might be necessary to cancel 3 or 4% of flights to free up more standby crew. I’ve just been listening to a discussion about Aer Lingus, who used to have frequent threatened strikes. Even though these hardly ever materialised, apparently the effect on bookings was immediate and very significant.

[BigFrank]

Now it's the weather and ATC which are also to blame.

Just heard it live in BBC 5-live at the moment.

"Enjoy" as our American cousins assert; so frustratingly.

Now he has just rowed back to say he is not blaming weather/ ATC but it is all due to "allocating 12 months leave in a 9 month space."

Now he has just blamed "thunderstorms over Barcelona"

¿Coherent?

They have prepared a list of cancellations to the end of October.

But it is not clear when they will publish it.

"Lines of flying" jargon to the fore. LOF = 1 aircraft ??

Emails to be sent today ? YES he says



I'm off. For my flight to Beauvais. If it's not cancelled, natch.

(He has stated they will pay EU261 for flights over next 2 weeks Max 20m€ hit here for Ryanair) Smaller figure quoted for revenues(?)

Mons-case gets a mention; 100% dismissive of its implications. "I'm just quoting him."
Now he is inviting everyone to join a union "with which we will not negotiate."

[Sober Lark]

Fair deal Frank's windfall. Books his cheap €9.99 flights to keep his options for travel open and gains €250 compensation +++

[j636]

Ryanair have terminated interlining talks with Norwegian airlines.

https://twitter.com/JMulliganIndo/status/909802799319388165

[toledoashley]

By the sound of it they were miffed that Norwegian signed up with easyJet.

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Why not do a BA and borrow 9 Qatar A320's for the next 6 weeks.....
When it comes to it FR is profit first passengers last.....

[RAT 5]

By the sound of it they were miffed that Norwegian signed up with easyJet.

Or they were the catalyst because they 'poached' RYR pilots.

[WHBM]

Disappointing that the BBC reporting of all this, serving Ryanair's largest market, is still, days after the situation emerged, just about parroting Ryanair's statements. Feature on BBC Monday lunchtime news was still parroting the official line of "40 cancellations a day", when it is surely not hard for them to find (here and elsewhere) that in reality it is twice as many. The rest of the report was taken up with yet another of the ad nauseam repetitions of the EU compensation requirements.

Just lazy reporting.

[daz211]

Hope the link works

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4053396-Flightcancellations.html#document/p1

[sinbad73]

Hope the link works

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4053396-Flightcancellations.html#document/p1

I wouldn't refer to that - they have already updated the cancellations. There were no cancellations showing from GLA earlier and there are now.

[daz211]

Well it's now showing on Ryanair's website
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/useful-info/help-centre/travel-updates/flight-cancellations7

[BCALBOY]

The canx posted by DAZ covers the period 25Sep-28Oct ,and this appears to still be correct .

There is a separate tranche covering 21-24Sep which he has not posted ,and this includes one rotation from Glasgow to Carcassone on Sat 23Sep.

[01475]

The latest statement about cancelling flights on busy routes where they could accomodate passengers the day before or after also doesn't ring true; I saw STN-TLL flights cancelled, and that only operates 4x weekly.

[alm1]

The latest statement about cancelling flights on busy routes where they could accomodate passengers the day before or after also doesn't ring true; I saw STN-TLL flights cancelled, and that only operates 4x weekly.

Madrid-Verona is twice weekly and still has cancellation.

[mik3bravo]

Storm in a tea cup. It's today's news story. FR ballsed up, big deal. **** happens. 2% of their customer base affected. The FR monster machine will continue to out perform the other wannabe's.

[01475]

It's good they've got the list out, and it does seem to be better thought out than the initial scramble in terms of targetting routes with multiple daily flights / other options. In that sense they can now start to try and limit the harm.

But... everyone knows this is out there, and they are presumably now stretched to breaking point. The next lot of bad press starts when they (given their size) start cancelling extra flights because of crew shortages; and probably it will happen somewhere every single day.

[3wheels]

Storm in a tea cup. It's today's news story. FR ballsed up, big deal. **** happens. 2% of their customer base affected. The FR monster machine will continue to out perform the other wannabe's.

Nope, 100% of their customer base affected. Who will fly with them in the next few weeks, or months?
What if more pilots leave...
It's the beginning of the end....

[canberra97]

You need to walk around with a sandwich board with your last statement:-)

[Charlie Roy]

Next chapter of this long running story has started, Ryanair will withdraw from Chopin Airport domestic flights from Warsaw to Gdansk and Wroclaw.

PPL has been allocating Ryanair the furthest posswible aircraft parking spaces from the airport building in order to make the services less competitive and there has also been long delays in ground transport to these planes that is often late and involves a 15-20 minute bus ride to the terminal via a very indirect route.

A complaint to the EU has been made.

http://www.aviation24.be/airports/warsaw-chopin/poland-intends-build-new-central-airport-45-km-warsaw/
DublinPole, what's up with this new proposed 3rd Warsaw airport. Why not just expand Modlin?

[A350Saltire]

Storm in a tea cup. It's today's news story. FR ballsed up, big deal. **** happens. 2% of their customer base affected. The FR monster machine will continue to out perform the other wannabe's.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/ryanair-cancellations-an-act-of-kindness-in-many-ways-20170918135950

[1sky]

Ryanair press conference in Burgas - Bulgaria this morning.

[mik3bravo]

It's the beginning of the end....

If nothing else, that comment gave me a belly laugh. Fanciful wishful thinking. Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel happy.

However, let's get back to numbers shall we, and some hard data:

http://corporate.ryanair.com/about-us/fact-and-figures/

[blind pew]

Not the only ones...my son flew to Istanbul last year from Heathrow...some BA diversions from Gatwick which didn't effect his flight. At the last minute they allocated the aircraft and crew to another service with the result that he and his family had a total of eight hours before they eventually left. Refused compensation as outside of BA control..not.

[mik3bravo]

Not the only ones...my son flew to Istanbul last year from Heathrow...some BA diversions from Gatwick which didn't effect his flight. At the last minute they allocated the aircraft and crew to another service with the result that he and his family had a total of eight hours before they eventually left. Refused compensation as outside of BA control..not.

. . . and there you have it. **** happens.

Energy providers raise cost of electricity to households. Insurance providers raise cost of car insurance. Credit monitor provider (Equifax) gets hacked, your PII is now at risk.

**** just happens. First world problems. People need a sense of perspective and get over it.

[Sober Lark]

3 wheels (9 posts) 100% affected? If you had brains you'd be dangerous. I have 11 flights with FR over the next 3 weeks none cancelled.

[heidelberg]

Mrs and myself planning DUB to AGP in November.
Because of the present Ryanair pilot holiday problems our choice is now down to one airline i.e. Aer Lingus - unless of course they run into a similar Pilots 'holiday' problem!
Anyone know if Aer Lingus operate their Pilot holidays programme using the calendar year?

[SpannerInTheWerks]

What goes around, comes around. This issue has been brewing for at least 15 years. MOL has reaped what he has sown - this issue is far more than pilots' annual leave naturally.

Sooner or later employees will take no more and vote with their feet - which has been going on to some extent for a long time now.

I've never spoken to anyone with a good opinion of Ryanair. Nothing about their organisation, from the comments made to me, puts them in contention for an 'Investor in People' type award.

Don't be too confident that Ryanair is exempt from it's own self-destruction - this is a PR nightmare and the pilot shortage within the company a potentially insoluble problem.

Pilots are not made overnight and simulator capacity cannot be increased at a whim. Someone mentioned on LinkedIn a few days ago that airline flying is not as attractive as a career option anymore - thanks in no small part to people like MOL, a lack of sponsorship (investment in people) generally and an expensive no-other-option training route to a fATPL/MPL.

I'm sorry for the passengers of course, but I for one would be pleased to see Ryanair and their attitudes to the public and staff crash and burn in a metaphorical sense.

[BigFrank]

O’Leary said consequential losses, caused when travellers cancel hire cars or hotels, will not be covered by Ryanair. He added that the airline will not book passengers on to rival airlines to get them to their destination on time.

“We will not pay for flights on other airlines,” he said. “We cannot afford to pay the high costs of our competitors.”

From The Guardian (London) today.

The first part is I think down to the carrier's T&C but I would suggest that this final part of the statement is outwith the spirit of EU261.

Is it outwith the letter?

If yes, will Herr Schulz's successor and/ or M Jean-Claud be taking an interest; always supposing the latter is in a state to so do.

[Curious Pax]

3 wheels (9 posts) 100% affected? If you had brains you'd be dangerous. I have 11 flights with FR over the next 3 weeks none cancelled.

Perhaps if you thought about it you would realise that out in the real world the vast majority of people booked on Ryanair in the next couple of months will be fretting about whether their flight will happen. Although only 2% (on Ryanair's figures) will end up being affected, the impact will be much wider. I would expect a number will look to rebook on another airline if they have the choice, rather than chance their flight being added to the cancelled list late in the day. There will also be a fair number who would have booked to travel at fairly short notice who will not do that on Ryanair now.

[Coquelet]

I have 8 flights with FR over the next six weeks, none cancelled.

[squeaker]

Yet.......

[mik3bravo]

What goes around, comes around. This issue has been brewing for at least 15 years. MOL has reaped what he has sown - this issue is far more than pilots' annual leave naturally.

Sooner or later employees will take no more and vote with their feet - which has been going on to some extent for a long time now.

I've never spoken to anyone with a good opinion of Ryanair. Nothing about their organisation, from the comments made to me, puts them in contention for an 'Investor in People' type award.

Don't be too confident that Ryanair is exempt from it's own self-destruction - this is a PR nightmare and the pilot shortage within the company a potentially insoluble problem.

Pilots are not made overnight and simulator capacity cannot be increased at a whim. Someone mentioned on LinkedIn a few days ago that airline flying is not as attractive as a career option anymore - thanks in no small part to people like MOL, a lack of sponsorship (investment in people) generally and an expensive no-other-option training route to a fATPL/MPL.

I'm sorry for the passengers of course, but I for one would be pleased to see Ryanair and their attitudes to the public and staff crash and burn in a metaphorical sense.

I agree with your comment regarding commercial airline pilot as an occupation is no longer seen as an attractive career. Doing the maths, time taken to achieve min. Requirements plus work life balance / family friendly,etc. and cost to recoup your education investment means its not as attractive now. Plenty of other career routes out their with much higher attractive factors on many levels.

However, there will always remain a cohort of wannabes focused on getting into the right seat and jet time. Likes of Ryanair offers that basic hours building to help pilots look at opportunity with longhaul fleets elsewhere. For some, there will always be ambition of a right seat or PIC on the 380 or Dreamliner.

[DaveReidUK]

I have 8 flights with FR over the next six weeks, none cancelled.

That's not altogether surprising.

There's an 85% probability that eight flights, each with a 2% chance of cancellation, are all going to fly.

[A350Saltire]

If nothing else, that comment gave me a belly laugh. Fanciful wishful thinking. Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel happy.

However, let's get back to numbers shall we, and some hard data:

Fact and Figures | Ryanair's Corporate Website (http://corporate.ryanair.com/about-us/fact-and-figures/)

It will be interesting to see how this fiasco affects those numbers. There are a lot of very annoyed people! It's also way above 2% of flights cancelled - more than 80 a day, not the 40-50 stated.

[oldart]

Passengers will soon forget about this episode and take a chance and book with Ryanair again and and again.

[DC3 Dave]

Passengers will soon forget about this episode and take a chance and book with Ryanair again and and again.

Was planning to fly to Limoges next August and hire a car. Now I'll drive all the way. I won't forget. There's enough growth out there for FR to brush this aside eventually, but it will have an effect.

[mik3bravo]

Passengers will soon forget about this episode and take a chance and book with Ryanair again and and again.

Of course they will. Customers are fickle minded on many consumer characteristics, not exclusively reserved to the airlines. Did Volkswagen see diesel car sales fall off that metaphorical cliff. Did the European high street banks implode following their predatory and irresponsible mortgage lending strategies that lead to the 2008 meltdown.
The consumer carries on.

Ryanair is extremely cash rich with high cash liquidity ratios. It is a powerful business operation and this latest challenge is an unfortunate event but one it will survive and continue growing. It's business model (whilst not for everyone) consistently delivers shareholder investment value and a major employer across Europe. That is the bigger picture.

MOL was upfront, said it as it is, facts and figures, the guy knows his numbers well, very well. The rostering dept on the other hand, well let's just say I would not like to be the leadership of that function, such basic ops stuff to get wrong.

[Refuellerman]

Mrs and myself planning DUB to AGP in November.
Because of the present Ryanair pilot holiday problems our choice is now down to one airline i.e. Aer Lingus - unless of course they run into a similar Pilots 'holiday' problem!
Anyone know if Aer Lingus operate their Pilot holidays programme using the calendar year?

Ezy or ls out of belfast, no delays or that type of **** happening up here

[Refuellerman]

Of course they will. Customers are fickle minded on many consumer characteristics, not exclusively reserved to the airlines. Did Volkswagen see diesel car sales fall off that metaphorical cliff. Did the European high street banks implode following their predatory and irresponsible mortgage lending strategies that lead to the 2008 meltdown.
The consumer carries on.

Ryanair is extremely cash rich with high cash liquidity ratios. It is a powerful business operation and this latest challenge is an unfortunate event but one it will survive and continue growing. It's business model (whilst not for everyone) consistently delivers shareholder investment value and a major employer across Europe. That is the bigger picture.

MOL was upfront, said it as it is, facts and figures, the guy knows his numbers well, very well. The rostering dept on the other hand, well let's just say I would not like to be the leadership of that function, such basic ops stuff to get wrong.
Rostering dept nothing to do with 140 transfers to d8

[PAXboy]

Economics101
And this ignores any further long-term reputational damage.There will not be any. The factors in FRs favour are already noted:


They are RICH.
Pax are POOR.
They have a PR machine that runs smoother than a Rolls-Royce.
Some Pax wannabe Pilots.

mik3bravo
Storm in a tea cup. It's today's news story. FR ballsed up, big deal. **** happens. 2% of their customer base affected. The FR monster machine will continue to out perform the other wannabe's.Absolutely. Even if the 2% number is not accurate, they will keep spouting it. And, given that BA has buried the reason for their massive systems failure a few months ago, they can claim to be 'open'.

[Andy_S]

They have a PR machine that runs smoother than a Rolls-Royce.

Self-evidently not true after this cock up.......

[PAXboy]

Just wait until a few months have elapsed. They will continue to smooth this, even as the real reason continues to leak out.
Again, compare their PR with BA's.

[Andy_S]

Just wait until a few months have elapsed. They will continue to smooth this......

And I’ve no doubt it will be. And no, this isn’t the end for Ryanair. And yes, people will still book with them.

But I do wonder if this is a bit of a watershed moment for them. They’ve been shown to be vulnerable and to have issues with staff retention and internal processes.

[mart901]

And I’ve no doubt it will be. And no, this isn’t the end for Ryanair. And yes, people will still book with them.

But I do wonder if this is a bit of a watershed moment for them. They’ve been shown to be vulnerable and to have issues with staff retention and internal processes.

They've had issues with staff retention for years, especially cabin crew. It's now come to a head, and the pilots are in a stronger position than they were because they are fighting for them

[PPRuNeUser0176]

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2017/0919/905861-ryanair-bonus-for-pilots/

Ryanair offers €12,000 bonus to pilots who give up leave

[mik3bravo]

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2017/0919/905861-ryanair-bonus-for-pilots/

Nice money, if you can get it.

[squeaker]

Plenty of strings attached if you read the whole article. Too easy for them to worm out of paying it.

[LGS6753]

I find it astonishing that they feel able to cancel 25% of their Stansted flights over the six week period. Since they are so dominant there, there's (almost) no-one to fear.

[BCALBOY]

FR are cancelling 7-10 departures per day from Stn in the period from 25Sep , this is no where near 25% of operation.

It involves the equivalent of 2 out of 41 STn based a/c though some of the cancelled flights are operated by overseas based aircraft.

It looks more like 7-8% of STN operation.

[WHBM]

Not paying someone for 12 months, and then not at all if they have left in the meantime, would appear to breach minimum pay legislation, in the UK at least (possibly also in Ireland and other EU countries).

Saying they will not be paid the amount due if they have more than 4 days sick in the intervening 12 months would act as an incentive to wish to work when unwell, which should surely attract the attention of even such a toothless regulator as the Irish CAA.

Interesting BBC take on the situation, at last now questioning the Ryanair official line

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41319482

[BFS BHD]

Ryanair press conference in Burgas - Bulgaria this morning.

Did this press conference happen?

[mik3bravo]

Not paying someone for 12 months, and then not at all if they have left in the meantime, would appear to breach minimum pay legislation, in the UK at least (possibly also in Ireland and other EU countries).

Saying they will not be paid the amount due if they have more than 4 days sick in the intervening 12 months would act as an incentive to wish to work when unwell, which should surely attract the attention of even such a toothless regulator as the Irish CAA.

Interesting BBC take on the situation, at last now questioning the Ryanair official line

Does Ryanair have a pilot shortage? - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41319482)

Slow day at the Beeb and amateur so called journalism. If they bothered to rewind yesterday's VT of the MOL press conference they will have fact based data on crew availability per airframe. Stupidity of the BBC. MOL would not be stating the numbers and facts yesterday for the fun of it. It was aimed at aviation regulators attention to detail and the Ryanair institutional investors and it's own employee's.

[1sky]

Did this press conference happen?

Yes, Burgas 1 aircraft base confirmed with 10 routes.

Nothing on the Ryanair website for the moment.

[BFS BHD]

Yes, Burgas 1 aircraft base confirmed with 10 routes.

Nothing on the Ryanair website for the moment.

Thanks for the info!

[Sober Lark]

Interesting BBC take on the situation, at last now questioning the Ryanair official line - We know 140 Ryanair pilots have gone to Norwegian this year

"April to June adjusted operating profit before leasing and depreciation (EBITDAR) fell to 1.19 billion crowns (€125.8 million), down 21 per cent year-on-year and below analysts’ forecast in a Reuters poll of 1.51 billion crowns. Norwegian Air’s operating result swung to a loss of 863 million crowns from a year-ago profit of 1 billion, while analysts had expected a loss of 246 million."

Not everyone you lose is a loss.

[Jamie2k9]

Yes, Burgas 1 aircraft base confirmed with 10 routes.

Nothing on the Ryanair website for the moment.

Burgas:
Bratislava (2)
Dusseldorf Weeze (2)
Frankfurt-Hahn (2)
Krakow (2)
Memmingen (2)
Milan Bergamo (2)
Riga (2)
Rzeszow (1)
Tel Aviv (2)
Warsaw Modlin (2)

Sofia:
Paphas (3)

Plovdiv:
Brussels Charleroi (2)
Frankfurt-Hahn (2)
Milan Bergamo (2)

Vana:
Brussels Charleroi (2)

[1sky]

The Bulgarian press release is now here:

RYANAIR ????????? ???????????? 100 ???. ?????? ? ???????? ? ???? ???????? ???? (? 87) 1 ??????? ???????, 10 ???????? ? 250 000 ??????? ??????? ? ???????? ?? ???????? ?????????? ?? ???? 2018 | Ryanair's Corporate Website (http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryanair-инвестира-допълнително-100-млн-долара/?market=bg)

The big question is what they plan to do with the aircraft in winter.

[BigFrank]

That would seem to be the case given that the BBC has just reported that Ryanair's offer to rebook passengers on alternative flights is contingent on their being willing to pay the difference when the replacement flight is more expensive in clear contradiction of EU261/2004.

An error by the BBC? Far from impossible !


A clear indication that Ryanair is an EU-free airline? Far from....

[toledoashley]

Would a Plovdiv base in the winter make sense, to tie in with ski season?

[Charlie Roy]

Just wait until a few months have elapsed. They will continue to smooth this, even as the real reason continues to leak out.
Again, compare their PR with BA's.

At least BA wet leased a bunch of Qatar A320's when BA had staffing issues (strikes). I wonder did Ryanair even explore this option? The 8 Qatar A321's would have worked great, and Qatar still have not resumed the dozens of daily short-haul flights it was forced to suspend earlier this year.

[RAT 5]

The underlying thought seems to be that cancelling the published number of flights and the slow winter schedule will somehow, at a stroke, solve their pilot shortage for next year. I am very sceptical about that. Next summer is not far away and the bums on seats that matter are in 1A & 1F.

[LTNman]

Joke going around that passengers will be charged for an apology, £10 will entitle the customer a terse and mendacious apology.

However, customers can upgrade to a ‘premium remorse’ package which will entitle them to more convincing expressions of regret.

“For a one-off payment of £50 our representative will try to squeeze out a tear whilst informing you that there’s no way you’ll be getting to your destination in the foreseeable future,” a spokesman told us.

[racedo]

"April to June adjusted operating profit before leasing and depreciation (EBITDAR) fell to 1.19 billion crowns (€125.8 million), down 21 per cent year-on-year and below analysts’ forecast in a Reuters poll of 1.51 billion crowns. Norwegian Air’s operating result swung to a loss of 863 million crowns from a year-ago profit of 1 billion, while analysts had expected a loss of 246 million."

Not everyone you lose is a loss.

Appears MOLs claim Norwegian are burning through cash is not far off the mark.

[DublinPole]

Poland intends to build a new central airport at 45 km of Warsaw - Aviation24.be (http://www.aviation24.be/airports/warsaw-chopin/poland-intends-build-new-central-airport-45-km-warsaw/)
DublinPole, what's up with this new proposed 3rd Warsaw airport. Why not just expand Modlin?

Since this is a Ryanair thread, I'll explain the Ryanair factor in this decision, the Ryanair factor is not the only reason they are building it, but certainly it is a factor that contributes to it.

Basically there is a long running battle between PPL (Polish State Airports) and Ryanair which has been going on for the best part of a decade to be honest on and off, I would say Ryanair have worse relations with PPL than any other airport operator, they've complained to the EU about them numerous times.

Basically what it stems from is many years ago when Ryanair flew from Chopin Airport, PPL closed the low cost area at Chopin Airport when LCCs started to rapidly expand and told Ryanair could stay if it went to the core part of the airport with much higher charges. many people speculated that this was an attempt to try and protect LOT.

Ryanair then was heavily lobbying for Modlin Airport for some years, quite a few before any building work started on it. The problem was that Modlin wasn't going to be built because there was not adequate funding for it and PPL would not supply it. Many people felt that PPL could fund it but simply refused to, again to protect LOT.

In the end without enough funding from PPL the Millitary agencies along with local authorites made submissions to the EU for grants to fund the operation of the airport which were accepted, at which point PPL became involved in the project again, the airport was built and Ryanair returned to Poland.

Then there was the situation with Wizz at Modlin who moved out of the airport back to Chopin for an undefined period because of the lack of ILS and then when the airport was closed due to the runway being defective Wizz tried to claim compensation from Modlin for the runway being out of action, despite the fact they'd already moved all their flights out of the airport at the time, they didn't get the compensation they were looking for and never came back.

Over the last 2-3 years PPL have made many attempts to try and gain sole shareholding of Modlin Airport and buying out the other shareholders and using their existing shareholding to get their own people appointed to the board and as chairman & CEO to influence the running of the airport and to run a so called duopoly airport strategy.

Most people I speak to are very cynical at this and believe that the only reason that PPL want to control Modlin is so they can control the growth of Ryanair and therefore protect Chopin Airport and LOT who have lost out because of the presence of Ryanair, there has been talk of having similar charging regimes at both airports and obviously that would hit Ryanair and benefit traditional carriers.

Modlin is now at capacity and again PPL are dragging their heals in relation to investing in the expansion of the airport however there has been indication that if they get full ownership they may be more likely to invest but there are questions about their motives for acquiring the full stake in the airport for the reasons that are outlined above, Modlin being at capacity suited PPL fine since if Modlin cannot expand neither can Ryanair.

To force the issue Ryanair moved it's domestic flights to Chopin Airport and said that if they cannot expand at Modlin they will just do so at Chopin starting with moving the most business orientated routes from Modlin (basically targeting LOT) to Chopin to allow more leisure routes out of Modlin. Chopin couldn't refuse this but on the day Ryanair announced it PPL made the extraordinary statement that they didn't want Ryanair at Chopin but they had to take them.

Since then there has been tit for tat stuff going on, for example in Chopin Airport now Ryanair are getting allocated the furthest away gates from the terminal on a regular basis when arriving into Warsaw that rarely see any use outside Ryanair flights even when nearer parking spaces are avaliable, having long waits for buses and other services that take long routes from the terminal to the airplane and vice versa. Ryanair is now pulling out of Chopin because of this and making a complaint to the EU about unfair treatment.

The idea of one central airport is essentially that in the long term when completed it can possibly replace both Modlin and Chopin Airport and will almost certainly owned by PPL - essentially this would give them complete control over aviation in Warsaw once more, without worrying about low cost carriers at a competing airport. It'll obviously help LOT too and it will bring other benefits than just related to LCCs and LOT so it'd be totally wrong to say they're just doing it for those reasons, but many people think that it plays a part.

[WHBM]

The points made about lack of subcharters are particularly notable at Stansted, apparently the point of greatest cancellations, where one of the major subcharter/ACMI operators in Europe, Titan, is based right on the field, and their fleet standing awaiting a call must be visible to all in the Ryanair office there.

[compton3bravo]

It costs money to charter aircraft from Titan or any other airline for that matter. Enough said.

[AirportPlanner1]

The Bulgarian press release is now here:

RYANAIR ????????? ???????????? 100 ???. ?????? ? ???????? ? ???? ???????? ???? (? 87) 1 ??????? ???????, 10 ???????? ? 250 000 ??????? ??????? ? ???????? ?? ???????? ?????????? ?? ???? 2018 | Ryanair's Corporate Website (http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryanair-инвестира-допълнително-100-млн-долара/?market=bg)

The big question is what they plan to do with the aircraft in winter.

A huge number of Bulgarians have left the country. I work with a guy from the Bourgas area. Sure some of these routes are for the bucket and space crowd, but others such as Hahn might have legs over winter to serve the diaspora.

What is interesting is the UK isn't included in this expansion.

[1sky]

A huge number of Bulgarians have left the country. I work with a guy from the Bourgas area. Sure some of these routes are for the bucket and space crowd, but others such as Hahn might have legs over winter to serve the diaspora.

What is interesting is the UK isn't included in this expansion.


Wizz Air already operated Burgas-Luton so I guess that was excluded from the local authority incentive and airport charges discounts.


I can see Hahn, Weeze, Bergamo and Memmingen being year around but that still leaves a very underused aircraft in winter. Maybe some W flying?

[1sky]

Ryanair have advertised 250,000 passengers a year for Burgas.


We know they are planning 19 weekly flights during the summer schedule (though perhaps not all flights will operate for the full season) adding up to about 180,000 passengers between April and October.


This leaves 80,000 passengers for the winter schedule or about 7 to 8 weekly departures. Of course, a lot can change between now and when the winter schedule is announced.

[PPRuNeUser0176]

Not going well....

https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0920/906317-ryanair-pilots/

[Sober Lark]

Prefer this?

Ryanair looking to Brazil for more airline pilots - Independent.ie (http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ryanair-looking-to-brazil-for-more-airline-pilots-36146856.html)

[RAT 5]

Listening to MOL's shpeel on Irish news he, almost, seemed to be blaming rostering for the mess; yet he controls and is responsible for that department. It is internal.

There is so much attempt at 'spin' on this matter that the Blarney Stone must be worn out.

[racedo]

Prefer this?

Ryanair looking to Brazil for more airline pilots - Independent.ie (http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ryanair-looking-to-brazil-for-more-airline-pilots-36146856.html)

It is becoming a bit of a parody where Independent is quoting what was said on here and then people posting the story and saying "oh look what they are saying so it must be fact after all"

[canberra97]

A very good 10 minutes regarding the current situation at Ryanair was shown on Newsnight on BBC2 on Wednesday night if anyone is interested in viewing on BBC catch-up.

[vikingivesterled]

It is becoming a bit of a parody where Independent is quoting what was said on here and then people posting the story and saying "oh look what they are saying so it must be fact after all"

That could be so if it wasn't for that Ryanair still have the August Rio and São Paulo roadshows for Captains advertised on their careers site.

[True Blue]

Well the corporate grave is littered with the remains of companies where their demise started with one small bad decision and that then snowballed. Economics will now take over and if Ryanair are unable to recruit enough pilots on the current contract, then they will have no choice but to improve that contract. If they refuse to accept that they need to improve work practices, the staffing issue will continue and get worse as I suspect pilots/cabin crew have plenty of alternatives at this moment of time. Ryanair bosses need to be thinking very hard about where they go from here, every direction has different implications. Corporate greed has caught up with them big time. I am as much a capitalist as the next person, but the workers also need to share in success better than has been happening over the past 10 years. Ryanair is maybe the first large example of where employees have suddenly got the upper hand. Dangerous time for the long-term future of Ryanair, Michael and his mates better be thinking very clearly.

[daz211]

Ryanair's Chief Executive Michael O'Leary says the airline will recruit 125 pilots over the next two weeks and increase pilots' pay.

But then goes on to say.
Ryanair's Chief Executive Michael O'Leary says he cannot guarantee an end to current flight cancellations and disruption.


Has he got a magic hat to pull all of these pilots from ?

[sinbad73]

FR must have a magic money tree.

He should ask Theresa May about hers :)

[Gulf Julliet Papa]

Doesn't matter how many pilots he recruits during the next 2 weeks. They won't be online for at least 4 - 6 months

[01475]

Agreed, and on top of that they have a screwed reputation with passengers, the baggage rule timing now looks awful.

They're on really dangerous territory reputationally now too. Imagine if they had a plane land at the wrong airport again; people would assume it was a tired pilot...

[DC3 Dave]

Perhaps a major re-branding is called for. A new name. May I suggest NEROAIR. The airline that fiddles as the Treaty of Rome burns.

[ayroplain]

Imagine if they had a plane land at the wrong airport again;.
When did this happen before?

[davidjohnson6]

BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Plane lands at airbase by mistake (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4857962.stm)

[ayroplain]

BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Plane lands at airbase by mistake (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4857962.stm)

That was not a Ryanair aircraft or crew. Please stick to the facts.

[davidjohnson6]

I grant you that it was operated by Eirjet rather than Ryanair but it was marketed solely by FR and was described in much of the press in the days after the incident occurred as being a Ryanair flight.

[SpannerInTheWerks]

I just hope this situation isn't twisted around to make it look as though it is the pilots are being unreasonable.

A news item on the BBC last night mentioned the Thomson pilots' strike.

Now all seemed well until the newsreader mentioned a 10% pay rise, which equated on average to £10,000 per pilot. Two issues here at least:

1. With public sector workers being capped at 1%, a 10% pay rise for what many might consider a lucrative profession will be seen as extortionate (private company or not); and
2. Simple maths reveals an average salary of around £100k per pilot.

Today on the lunchtime news there was a Captain from an international pilot training organisation stating a shortage of pilots and the fact that the profession isn't as attractive as it used to be.

However, the newsreader asked if this situation with Ryanair wasn't an opportunity for pilots to seek better pay and conditions on the back of the Ryanair debacle ... ?

Not too difficult to mix these various news reports up to make it look as though greedy, selfish, over-paid, under worked pilots are the real cause of the problem - with the pilot holiday situation making it impossible for a responsible, customer-focussed airline such as Ryanair to fulfil its commitments to its passengers.

I hope the situation has gone beyond that and the public realise that the fault lies fairly and squarely with MOL and his 'management' team.

It would be a shame if the reputation of pilots was tarnished by the perception of a strong union (BALPA) forcing pay deals on the airlines at the expense of the passengers.

[fireflybob]

was described in much of the press in the days after the incident occurred as being a Ryanair flight.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

[daz211]

Looks like MOL has is boxing glove on := from the guardian

The Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary, has escalated the airline’s dispute with pilots, saying they do not have a “difficult job” and claiming he can force them to give up a week of leave.

[supermarine]

Mr O'Leary is looking as haggard as I have ever seen him.

So glad even teflon coated executives can have issues.

Plenty of mileage and management left on this.

[ayroplain]

I grant you that it was operated by Eirjet rather than Ryanair but it was marketed solely by FR and was described in much of the press in the days after the incident occurred as being a Ryanair flight.
So, a poster here on PPrune perpetuated a falsehood by giving the impression that a Ryanair crew had previously landed at the wrong airport and should it happen again.......? The likes of the Daily Mail would easily pick that up and make a story for its gullible readers to spread around even further. I would have expected more from contributors to this Forum.

[ESCNI]

Does the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/mar/30/theairlineindustry.travelnews) qualify as the likes of the Daily Mail?

...also noticed this item (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/ryanair/Ryanair-flight-went-to-wrong-airport/) from the Daily Telegraph.

[ayroplain]

OK, you've proved your point that the Guardian and the DT can also print falsehoods. Thanks for that.

[SWBKCB]

Have I lost the plot - both reports look accurate, if a bit mocking in tone?

Anyway, back to Ryanair...

[vkid]

They must be trying to get hours in for new pilots anyway..watching two ryanair planes flying around shannon all day today. Rarely see them training in shannon.

[WHBM]

So, a poster here on PPrune perpetuated a falsehood by giving the impression that a Ryanair crew had previously landed at the wrong airport
Not a falsehood. It was a Ryanair flight, with a Ryanair flight number, operating a Ryanair scheduled flight, which everyone on board had booked on the Ryanair website, paid their money to Ryanair (the key point), etc, etc.

If Ryanair choose to put their flights out to an ACMI provider, it's still their flight.

If it comes to that, most Ryanair flights don't have a Ryanair crew either; they have self-employed crew supplied through an agency.

[Cazalet33]

If it comes to that, most Ryanair flights don't have a Ryanair crew either; they have self-employed crew supplied through an agency.

If cheapocheapo sell them themselves short, they really shouldn't bitch that they're underpaid or overworked.

[DublinPole]

Some of the made up stories in the press are kind of desperate.

As is the Daily Mail clearly having some gripe with Kenny Jacobs.

[01475]

So, a poster here on PPrune perpetuated a falsehood by giving the impression that a Ryanair crew had previously landed at the wrong airport and should it happen again.......? The likes of the Daily Mail would easily pick that up and make a story for its gullible readers to spread around even further. I would have expected more from contributors to this Forum.

Try telling that to the people on it! They booked their flights on Ryanair.com; it was Ryanair's flight. (In exactly the same way as the Carpatair incident at Rome was Alitalia's flight no matter how much white paint they had to hand!)

The reputation of an airline is vulnerable and Ryanair's is on the line. If it suffers further damage then no sentences including the words "wet lease" or "not actually an employee; self employed through an agency" would help them!!!

[DublinPole]

Word on the street that Ryanair's lawyers are going to start proceedings against some of the media and the press in the upcoming days for some of the ridicolous things that have been printed in the media, the fabrications and the outright lies.

There's been people claiming they were treated badly and had their flights cancelled between airports that Ryanair don't serve, photos claiming to show things on Ryanair aircraft which are not even 737s just to mention a few things.

[racedo]

I grant you that it was operated by Eirjet rather than Ryanair but it was marketed solely by FR and was described in much of the press in the days after the incident occurred as being a Ryanair flight.

An 11 1/5 year old story that you dredge up...................... DJ you need to do better.

[01475]

Word on the street that Ryanair's lawyers are going to start proceedings against some of the media and the press in the upcoming days for some of the ridicolous things that have been printed in the media, the fabrications and the outright lies.

There's been people claiming they were treated badly and had their flights cancelled between airports that Ryanair don't serve, photos claiming to show things on Ryanair aircraft which are not even 737s just to mention a few things.

Well this may be the time to get abrasive and that may work...

... or it will turn out that the story was 50% correct and up to 40% unverifiable, and the blood-letting will continue.

I know they think there's no such thing as bad publicity, but Gerald Ratner knows that if you get things wrong there can be!

[DublinPole]

Indeed but the problem is there is a pile load of people in the British Media who are treating this very different because it's Ryanair and have it in for them, some of which have already been sued before for printing untruths about Ryanair.

If the exact same happened with another airline it would get very little coverage, the amount of flack Jacobs has got in the Mail and the invasion of his privacy however is pretty disgusting.

[01475]

If the exact same happened with another airline it would get very little coverage, the amount of flack Jacobs has got in the Mail and the invasion of his privacy however is pretty disgusting.

Really? Apart from through insolvency the only airline that has ever had problems on a similar scale has been BA and the press certainly haven't ignored it when it's happened!

The actual effect has probably been felt by something like 100,000 UK citizens, and every UK citizen that had a Ryanair booking in the next few months has suffered fear. Newspapers don't often get to print a story about something that's affected that many people!

[DublinPole]

BA was a much bigger scale than this as far as UK flights are concerned.

How many UK flights are Ryanair cancelling a day? About 10? How many were BA cancellng a day? A whole schedule of hundreds.

How much notice did those BA customers get? A day or two. How much notice did Ryanair fliers get? Up to six weeks.

How many BA flyers could transfer to an alternative flight the same day? None How many Ryanair can? A lot.

If you add up all the UK flights BA have cancelled this year it's still going to be higher than Ryanair by the end of all this, but lets not let that get in the way of a good media witchhunt.

[01475]

It was more severe for a shorter time. But that's part of the problem Ryanair faced; even the drip feed lasted long enough to scare a lot of people!

[racedo]

Word on the street that Ryanair's lawyers are going to start proceedings against some of the media and the press in the upcoming days for some of the ridicolous things that have been printed in the media, the fabrications and the outright lies.

There's been people claiming they were treated badly and had their flights cancelled between airports that Ryanair don't serve, photos claiming to show things on Ryanair aircraft which are not even 737s just to mention a few things.

One only has to look at the fabricated illness stories on All inclusive holidays to see what people will do.

[racedo]

Really? Apart from through insolvency the only airline that has ever had problems on a similar scale has been BA and the press certainly haven't ignored it when it's happened!

The actual effect has probably been felt by something like 100,000 UK citizens, and every UK citizen that had a Ryanair booking in the next few months has suffered fear. Newspapers don't often get to print a story about something that's affected that many people!

Hardly 100k UK citizens.............

[DublinPole]

It was more severe for a shorter time. But that's part of the problem Ryanair faced; even the drip feed lasted long enough to scare a lot of people!

I agree the drip feed was not good - but I suspect some of that was down to the fact they realised the problems so late that they had to cancel any flight in the first few days to be able to cope since they didn't have time to work out a more sensible plan of action that would effect customers the least like they did with the later cancellations.

[DublinPole]

One only has to look at the fabricated illness stories on All inclusive holidays to see what people will do.

Jacobs was particuarly bad, they started posting entire articles about him, containing screenshots from his Facebook and pretty much everything he ever done and taking a whole load of it completely out of context and linked it to the current crisis by saying that basically the person who was at a crisis press conference beside Michael O'Leary then was seen drinking beer.

There was one massive problem with this.

Jacobs wasn't at the press conference.

But why let the facts get in the way.

[racedo]

Indeed but the problem is there is a pile load of people in the British Media who are treating this very different because it's Ryanair and have it in for them, some of which have already been sued before for printing untruths about Ryanair.

If the exact same happened with another airline it would get very little coverage, the amount of flack Jacobs has got in the Mail and the invasion of his privacy however is pretty disgusting.

Oh its stored up revenge and this story will get dredged up at every turn.

Media buying arm always changes it because when some see the £1 million campaign that excludes their newspaper they get the message.

MOL refusing to kowtow to UK media makes them angry as doesn't he know who they are.
Problem is that he does which is why he ignores them.

[01475]

Hardly 100k UK citizens.............

Ok, a large number of people and far more than affected by the normal news story.

The day I looked at may not have been representative, but on it more than half the flights involved the UK, and we might guess that about half the people on those flights were British (I know some will have more people from abroad than others, but on the other hand don't try telling me that there's a lot of Spaniards flying from EMA to Palma at this time of year :-D )

[01475]

There was one massive problem with this.

Jacobs wasn't at the press conference.

But why let the facts get in the way.

The good news is that things like this (if it's true) may have less effect than you think. I first found out about this from you right now and had never seen the story or heard of the man.

But I have seen a Facebook feed with people sharing stories about cancellations and worrying about their short breaks (not one person I know has actually had a flight cancelled by anyone other than EasyJet in this period, but that's by the by; the fear and the bad press are there and causing harm).

[DublinPole]

The good news is that things like this (if it's true) may have less effect than you think. I first found out about this from you right now and had never seen the story or heard of the man.

Ryanair marketing boss boasts of his 'busy week' | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4898590/Ryanair-marketing-boss-boasts-busy-week.html)

Of course, it won't do any real damage, but my point is this shows the way the British Media are, it's not about printing facts it's all about having it in for people who they don't like and facts need not necessarily get in the way of that.

But I have seen a Facebook feed with people sharing stories about cancellations and worrying about their short breaks (not one person I know has actually had a flight cancelled by anyone other than EasyJet in this period, but that's by the by; the fear and the bad press are there and causing harm).

I agree and the fact that Ryanair tend to normally cancel less flights than almost all the other airlines because of the extensive use of standby crews to recover service means historically they have cancelled less flights in the past.

That's before you take into account the many strikes that have took place over the years in other airlines and IT problems etc that has grounded whole schedules for days.

As I've said even after this is finished Ryanair still probably won't be anywhere near the top of the stats of % of flights cancelled in this calendar year, but the media would have you believe that they are unreliable and more likely to cancel than anyone else.

[racedo]

Ok, a large number of people and far more than affected by the normal news story.

The day I looked at may not have been representative, but on it more than half the flights involved the UK, and we might guess that about half the people on those flights were British (I know some will have more people from abroad than others, but on the other hand don't try telling me that there's a lot of Spaniards flying from EMA to Palma at this time of year :-D )

Really ?

Southern Railways strike ?
London Euston fire last week ?
Tube Strikes ?

[racedo]

The good news is that things like this (if it's true) may have less effect than you think. I first found out about this from you right now and had never seen the story or heard of the man.

But I have seen a Facebook feed with people sharing stories about cancellations and worrying about their short breaks (not one person I know has actually had a flight cancelled by anyone other than EasyJet in this period, but that's by the by; the fear and the bad press are there and causing harm).

We are talking of Facebook where people will be claiming their trip to X has been affected as all of a sudden they get attention.
Reality is most will NOT have anything booked and will not be effected in the slightest.
However their claim to fame will be people reading their crap on facebook.

[PPRuNeUser0176]

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2017/0921/906411-ryanair-agm/
Ryanair bases in Dublin, Barcelona, Stansted and Shannon have joined colleagues at over 50 other bases in rejecting the airline's proposals for pay increases and bonuses in exchange for giving up annual leave to alleviate the staffing crisis.

It is understood that pilots at 55 of Ryanair's 86 bases have now turned down the deal - raising the prospect of conflict looming between management and staff at the airline.


However, Mr O'Leary has ruled out any change to the airline's contractor model based on hiring a significant number of staff through agencies or alternative arrangements rather than as direct employees.

Pilots were offered the bonus in exchange for working an additional 10 days to plug a shortage that last week forced Ryanair to cancel over 2,000 flights in September and October.

Pilots at London Stansted, Dublin, Frankfurt and Berlin have now been offered an additional €10,000 a year, Michael O'Leary said.

[Charlie Roy]

I grant you that it was operated by Eirjet rather than Ryanair

The question should be: why didn't Ryanair resort to the modern day Eirjet's of this world for this pilot shortage and wet lease planes and crews from other airlines?

[01475]

Have they not?

I assumed the cancellations would be what was left over after they'd got their hands on anything they could!

[mik3bravo]

Indeed but the problem is there is a pile load of people in the British Media who are treating this very different because it's Ryanair and have it in for them, some of which have already been sued before for printing untruths about Ryanair.

If the exact same happened with another airline it would get very little coverage, the amount of flack Jacobs has got in the Mail and the invasion of his privacy however is pretty disgusting.

Nail. Head. Hit.

[mik3bravo]

BA was a much bigger scale than this as far as UK flights are concerned.

How many UK flights are Ryanair cancelling a day? About 10? How many were BA cancellng a day? A whole schedule of hundreds.

How much notice did those BA customers get? A day or two. How much notice did Ryanair fliers get? Up to six weeks.

How many BA flyers could transfer to an alternative flight the same day? None How many Ryanair can? A lot.

If you add up all the UK flights BA have cancelled this year it's still going to be higher than Ryanair by the end of all this, but lets not let that get in the way of a good media witchhunt.

The BA outage was a buried story. And there is a lot to that little gem. Bur it was buried. Those on here know it.

[DaveReidUK]

Strange. I could have sworn that it hit the headlines in pretty well every newspaper in the county.

[A350Saltire]

The BA outage was a buried story. And there is a lot to that little gem. Bur it was buried. Those on here know it.

Is that you Mr O'Leary?

[aileron]

I've never flown Ryanair and I never will. It will never get a penny from me. It has no respect for its employees, how anyone could work for them is a mystery. Its workforce slaves away to make it richer. Amazing. The quickest way to stop a system is to stop funding it.
Stop funding Ryanair.

[Andy_S]

Strange. I could have sworn that it hit the headlines in pretty well every newspaper in the county.

I wasn't even in the UK at the time, and I read about it every day.

There's some serious Ryanair Fanboy vibes going down here......

[DublinPole]

Since this is a Ryanair thread, I'll explain the Ryanair factor in this decision, the Ryanair factor is not the only reason they are building it, but certainly it is a factor that contributes to it.

Basically there is a long running battle between PPL (Polish State Airports) and Ryanair which has been going on for the best part of a decade to be honest on and off, I would say Ryanair have worse relations with PPL than any other airport operator, they've complained to the EU about them numerous times.

Basically what it stems from is many years ago when Ryanair flew from Chopin Airport, PPL closed the low cost area at Chopin Airport when LCCs started to rapidly expand and told Ryanair could stay if it went to the core part of the airport with much higher charges. many people speculated that this was an attempt to try and protect LOT.

Ryanair then was heavily lobbying for Modlin Airport for some years, quite a few before any building work started on it. The problem was that Modlin wasn't going to be built because there was not adequate funding for it and PPL would not supply it. Many people felt that PPL could fund it but simply refused to, again to protect LOT.

In the end without enough funding from PPL the Millitary agencies along with local authorites made submissions to the EU for grants to fund the operation of the airport which were accepted, at which point PPL became involved in the project again, the airport was built and Ryanair returned to Poland.

Then there was the situation with Wizz at Modlin who moved out of the airport back to Chopin for an undefined period because of the lack of ILS and then when the airport was closed due to the runway being defective Wizz tried to claim compensation from Modlin for the runway being out of action, despite the fact they'd already moved all their flights out of the airport at the time, they didn't get the compensation they were looking for and never came back.

Over the last 2-3 years PPL have made many attempts to try and gain sole shareholding of Modlin Airport and buying out the other shareholders and using their existing shareholding to get their own people appointed to the board and as chairman & CEO to influence the running of the airport and to run a so called duopoly airport strategy.

Most people I speak to are very cynical at this and believe that the only reason that PPL want to control Modlin is so they can control the growth of Ryanair and therefore protect Chopin Airport and LOT who have lost out because of the presence of Ryanair, there has been talk of having similar charging regimes at both airports and obviously that would hit Ryanair and benefit traditional carriers.

Modlin is now at capacity and again PPL are dragging their heals in relation to investing in the expansion of the airport however there has been indication that if they get full ownership they may be more likely to invest but there are questions about their motives for acquiring the full stake in the airport for the reasons that are outlined above, Modlin being at capacity suited PPL fine since if Modlin cannot expand neither can Ryanair.

To force the issue Ryanair moved it's domestic flights to Chopin Airport and said that if they cannot expand at Modlin they will just do so at Chopin starting with moving the most business orientated routes from Modlin (basically targeting LOT) to Chopin to allow more leisure routes out of Modlin. Chopin couldn't refuse this but on the day Ryanair announced it PPL made the extraordinary statement that they didn't want Ryanair at Chopin but they had to take them.

Since then there has been tit for tat stuff going on, for example in Chopin Airport now Ryanair are getting allocated the furthest away gates from the terminal on a regular basis when arriving into Warsaw that rarely see any use outside Ryanair flights even when nearer parking spaces are avaliable, having long waits for buses and other services that take long routes from the terminal to the airplane and vice versa. Ryanair is now pulling out of Chopin because of this and making a complaint to the EU about unfair treatment.

The idea of one central airport is essentially that in the long term when completed it can possibly replace both Modlin and Chopin Airport and will almost certainly owned by PPL - essentially this would give them complete control over aviation in Warsaw once more, without worrying about low cost carriers at a competing airport. It'll obviously help LOT too and it will bring other benefits than just related to LCCs and LOT so it'd be totally wrong to say they're just doing it for those reasons, but many people think that it plays a part.

PPL have today formally blocked the expansion of Modlin Airport.

A shareholder vote took place and they were the only ones to abstain.

They will not agree to expand the airport unless all the other shareholders sell up to them.

Also now talk of the airport being shut completely soon due to maintenance that cannot be completed because of deadlock between shareholders

[PPRuNeUser0176]

Not exactly getting better:

Ryanair has told cabin crew staff based at England’s East Midlands airport that due to a winter reduction in aircraft, all Customer Service Supervisors must take a six-week block of unpaid leave.

They can avoid this by accepting six weeks secondment to bases with spare capacity in Eindhoven, Cologne and Berlin.

However the staff must pay for their own hotels and meals during that period.

If they reject this offer, they will not be paid for six weeks, and will not be entitled to statutory payments due to turning down alternative work.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0922/906745-ryanair/

[racedo]

PPL have today formally blocked the expansion of Modlin Airport.

A shareholder vote took place and they were the only ones to abstain.

They will not agree to expand the airport unless all the other shareholders sell up to them.

Also now talk of the airport being shut completely soon due to maintenance that cannot be completed because of deadlock between shareholders


What shareholding do PPL hold ?

[vikingivesterled]

What happened to the Ryanair with many destinations but few bases, where everybody spent the night at home. Who created this ungodly mess with tiny bases in places where no crew wants to live. Airport incentives is not the be all and end all and one would think O'Brien had experience in that.
Each pilot should have a prioritised list of where they'd be willing to move and no new base should be created in a place that has less than 14 captains/fo with that place on their list. If that is not the case it can be a destination but not a base. In addition the sheer amount of bases becomes unmanagable. Where they to travel round to hear out what pilots want rather than more money, it could take 3 months.

[DublinPole]

What shareholding do PPL hold ?

Millitary Property Agency 34.4%
Masovian District Local Authority 30.4%
PPL - Polish State Airports 30.4%
Town of Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki 4.8%

[racedo]

Thanks...,

[heidelberg]

Looked at Ryanair charges for November outbound and December return Dublin/Malaga for 2 PAX.
Guess what - Aer Lingus were better value. I booked with AL.
Thank you Mr O'Leary for helping make Aer Lingus competitive.

[Alsacienne]

Ryanair advertising on UK TV this morning ...'seats from £14.99' ...

[pabely]

I remember when they used to be 99p, how times have changed :ooh:

[ESCNI]

Take away the £13 APD, and those flights would be £1.99 ... so, times haven't really changed that much.

[ayroplain]

I remember when they used to be 99p, how times have changed :ooh:
There were fares of 0.01 as well as 0.99. I had some of them. Unfortunately, they had to end as the employees of a certain other airline mounted a campaign of buying up all those seats with no intent to fly.

[canberra97]

I can remember taking over 25 flights with Ryanair when they offered 00.01 and 99 pence flights and in one week alone I took six flights.

I knew that they would never last so I made the most of them at the time and taking the opportunity to visit obscure destinations on their network.

[Trav a la]

Looks like the CAA are keeping a close eye on MOL.

Ryanair agrees to put passengers on other airlines' flights (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2017/09/ryanair-agrees-to-put-passengers-on-other-airlines-?_ga=2.103340160.189905884.1504446800-969737047.1432498792)

[WHBM]

There were fares of 0.01 as well as 0.99. I had some of them. Unfortunately, they had to end as the employees of a certain other airline mounted a campaign of buying up all those seats with no intent to fly.
Well so what ? If they were offered at a certain price, and were sold, the airline got the anticipated revenue. What more could they want ?

[AirportPlanner1]

Not really because the flights were sold at that price in anticipation of being topped up by ancillary revenues, and also in some cases to ensure passenger targets with airports/regions were met to unlock discounts/rewards/subsidies. None of that is possible if folks don't show up.

[c52]

It seemed to me almost invariably that when there was a 1p flight to anywhere, all return flights were priced at a more normal level.

Though I did once manage to fly five people STN-HHN and back for less than £100 including all charges.

[vikingivesterled]

If Ryanair don't like Norwegian pinching their pilots, they need to muscle in on Norwegian's core multi frequency 737 routes that provide the cashflow to finance their very expensive transcontinenal expansion. Instead of leaving it to others to decide and just trot out the same mantra about them being out of money in 6 months that was the reason they didn't took up the mantel before Norwegian's big finance markets collection and before they had a bank to sell.

[Gulf Julliet Papa]

If Ryanair don't like Norwegian pinching their pilots, they need to muscle in on Norwegian's core multi frequency...

If Ryanair don't like Norwegian pinching their pilots, they need to increase the pilots terms and conditions above that of Norwegian, and treat pilots with respect. Simple. Note that despite all the negative publicity around the pilot shortage Ryanair have not increased the T&Cs at all, and experienced pilots and staff will continue to leave from all departments

[RAT 5]

Simple. Note that despite all the negative publicity around the pilot shortage Ryanair have not increased the T&Cs at all,

I think you'll find that has been the case for the past few years, not just this month, and indeed some have worsened in passing years while the competitiors have gone in the opposite direction. Go figure.

[Gulf Julliet Papa]

RAT5 - I'm very well aware (more than most on here) it has been the case for many years. My point is (maybe badly put) is despite the publicity and the disruption, Ryanair are still not doing a single thing to prevent this happening again.

Offering new joiners a bonus is actually a salery advance - won't help.

Offering current pilots a bribe not to quit until 31 Oct 18 - complete insult.

Employing 150 pilots next week...great. Who is going to train them? The training dept is beyond stretched as it is. Employing pilots is one thing, actually getting them trained to be a solution is another

[vikingivesterled]

RAT5 - GJP : I thought we where discussing those things under terms, but;
I'm sure some pilots want a high sector pay and organising their own tax affairs, instead of a seriously reduced one to cover expenses transfered to the airline like withheld and employers taxes plus some of the soundries like water, food, travels and hotels. Not to talk about the higthened tax & social expense implications of local contracts for some countries. And job security could be no higher by local contracts if they are organized through local freestanding companies, just owned by Ryanair instead of the pilots themselves. Are you sure getting writh of the niggly irritations are worth it.
But there could be a 2 tier option, hence my earlier post:

It is time for Ryanair to get a real cross-functional Deputy CEO, with a seat on the board, so it can work on more options for the future. O'Leary would keep an eye on proceedings and work as a back-out plan until some years down the line he could take his rightful place as a working Chairman.
This person would need to have experience from how all parts of the airline functions, be focused on the core values but at the same time be a person of trust/truth and have creative ideas on how to adjust the path.

[Gulf Julliet Papa]

Vicking, I 100% agree this is for terms and conditions rather than airlines and routes. However you suggested a route "solution" to a HR problem hence why the following posts are correcting the thought that muscling in on routes is a clever idea...

[oldart]

RAT5 - I'm very well aware (more than most on here) it has been the case for many years. My point is (maybe badly put) is despite the publicity and the disruption, Ryanair are still not doing a single thing to prevent this happening again.

Offering new joiners a bonus is actually a salery advance - won't help.

Offering current pilots a bribe not to quit until 31 Oct 18 - complete insult.

Employing 150 pilots next week...great. Who is going to train them? The training dept is beyond stretched as it is. Employing pilots is one thing, actually getting them trained to be a solution is another

It would appear Ryanair have two planes training at PIK at the moment, one touch and go for each new pilot, soon have them trained up and operating on service flights.:8

[Harry Wayfarers]

That's one step further than 'Fizzair" ... Going back to their early days they put a Captain in the LHS without so much as a simulator check, no sooner had his first flight got airborne than he declared a MAYDAY based on his own incapacitation, at that point the First Officer utrtered words that cannot be repeated here, took control, and landed the aircraft back in Budapest.

[1sky]

What are Ryanair doing with their winter schedule? It is quite late to be making changes.

I have just had 10 flights (from a few bases) with schedule changes, day changes or outright cancellations. So far not a single notification or email.

Quite a few flights seem to be dropped.

[owenc]

Why has Ryanair cancelled two months of flights from Belfast to Gatwick? What is going on? I have block booked flights!

[NorthEasterner]

Something seriously wrong here.

Summer 18 routes have gone offline