Ryanair v ATC again!!
 

Found this on Ryanair's website today;

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31.07.08
UK ATC Staff Shortages and Equipment Failures Again Cause Serious Delays



Today (31 July) UK Air Traffic Control equipment failure is causing widespread and serious delays to passengers across the UK. Last week, over 13,000 Ryanair passengers and 87 Ryanair flights were delayed by UK Air Traffic Control (NATS). Since March of this year, air traffic control delays caused by NATS staff shortages have increased by more than 200%.

Every year the same sorry pattern is repeated - NATS fails to prepare for the busy Summer, following a quieter Winter. The resulting staff shortages and service failures cause long delays to millions of UK passengers every Summer.

NATS is the second most expensive ATC provider in Europe and one of the worst performers. The CAA regulator, which failed so spectacularly in their regulation of London airports, can help to redeem itself by forcing NATS to deliver a decent service or recommend that they lose their monopoly right to abuse and overcharge UK passengers.

Speaking today David O’Brien, Ryanair’s Director of Flight & Ground Operations said:

“Ryanair trains over 400 Boeing 737-800 next generation pilots every year for deployment across Europe. Meanwhile the NATS monopoly fails to produce even the small number of Air Traffic Controllers required each year in the UK causing continuing delays to millions of passengers year after year.

“NATS first promised to eliminate staff shortages and improve services over five years ago, when they set about hoodwinking the CAA into relaxing their monopoly licence conditions. The same problems remain and millions of passengers must endure unnecessary ATC delays.

“It is time for the CAA to fix NATS or have them replaced”.



I think a few flights will be going the long way round again this afternoon!

Ryanair vs NATS
 

So, just out of interest, all you ryanair pilots out there... Do you agree with David O'Brien?? Is he your spokesman, or is he just another to**er morphed from O'Learys mould?

yes, lets relax licence conditions so some numpty who shouldnt be valid is, and then has a raging incident because they shouldnt be in the seat. compromising safety, good idea.
i was at work yesterday and know nothing of equipment failure, not saying there wasnt one.. but i never noticed. if they want to cut down their delays, stop scheduling flights to take off 20 minutes after it has touched down and missing your own slots.
is this yet again, ryanair blaming us for the !!!!e running of its company??
i would be ashamed to work for them....pathetic.

The TLPD (traffic load prediction device) was broken this morning. It allows us to predict the numbers of aircraft that are planned to enter the sector in 15 min blocks. When its broken, regs have to be applied so that we don't get overloaded and provide an unsafe service because we are too busy.

Out of how many? Rather more than that i'd wager. And if you didn't try to make them all take off and land at the same time then it would be less.

we do already

Yes maybe, but you don't train them from scratch, you do type conversions which take alot less time than the two years min to train an area ATCO from the beginning.

Do your aircraft never break? No. Do you always run on time? No. Do you file levels to beat regs and then request higher levels? Yes. Do you get given them? Yes most of the time because we try to provide a high level of "customer service".

I really pity Ryanair employees when i hear what drivel their management comes out with.

What a f***ing joke...how the hell does some tw*t working for a cowboy outfit like Ryanair get to lecture NATS on how to train controllers??
No doubt the Ryanair crews will now come crawling out of the woodwork to have a pop...you know who you are...bring it on.

But it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that NATS could do somewhat better with it's 'cradle-to-readyroom' controller training :).

Don't get mad, just make them number 2.
No short cuts, no high speed, don't do them any favours.

@ Michael O' Leary,
If you are not satisfied with service given by NATS move to another market:E

@ NATS&UK colleagues,
If I remember correctly when things in Ireland went in wrong direction Michael O' Leary was one of the first who said that IAA hadn't worked properly. Than IAA ATCOs thrown stone and s:mad: to Michael but later on (on pprune pages ) we found:
-IAA hadn't recruited new ATCOs for ages :ugh:
-There is no clear evidence that safety assessment and site acceptance test was done before EUROCAT was operational :ugh:
-That provider and CAA is not separated:ugh:
-And a lot of other small s:mad: :ugh:

So be careful when fight against Michael. I know and hope that NATS is not IAA and I will be disappointed if Michael proves otherwise. :{

Please do not take this out on the pilots! We are part of the orchestra but not the conductor!

I spent yesterday at Hurn where I took part in a TRM day for ATCO cadets. Alongside me was a firefighter and a Ryanair line/training/recruitment captain. Funny that he didn't mention this garbage while he had the chance! In fact he was very happy with the service he receives and having flown various types for various companies around the world, he reckons we are the best at what we do. Maybe he might like to tell his management that.
BTW, he also thought that most of RYR's problems stem from their ground handling agents cocking things up!

no they dont! they take all the people from oxford who werent good enough to get jobs at decent airlines then charge them 30k, read that again 30k to do a type rating...and to buy your own uniform of course!

As somebody mentioned earlier, don't take it out on the crews. They are just the foot soldiers at the front, just like the ATCOs on the other end. It would be unprofessional to punish crews for the unqualified statements issued by their company.

Adverse Bump

What a Load of Utter Rubbish you write !!!

They take all the people from Oxford who weren't good enough to get jobs at decent airlines.

If you think the guy's and girl's cant get jobs anywhere else, then you don't know the Oxford product !!
The job market has been poor since the end of last year and the best chance for a jet job is Ryanair for many of the graduates this year.

Also its not just Oxford students who are flying for RYR, there are a good cross section from Cabair, Jerez, and various modular routes and do you mean to tell me that they were not good enough to get jobs elsewhere !

I think a public apology is in order for your remark.

Get your facts straight before you post, the course costs €29000 and at the tourist rate of €1.21 to the £ equals £23966. and the Uniform cost £280.
Where do you get the extra £5754 from.

Also this is an ATC forum and you are totally off topic.

Yahoo! / Del Prado

Grow up both of you, as a Ryanair pilot has said DON'T take it out on the crews, they are the troops doing their best in a cut throat world.
Not Senior managers making comments for free publicity.

As a non-Ryan pilot I´d be most delighted to get the directs etcetc.

However, there might be some truth in the statement itself. From how I read it, its not against the ATCOs but the management. And I think, if I remember correctly, there has been a thread or two about said management with a slight tendency against them from the workforce.

So is that guy maybe pointing in the right direction?

and,

Can I ask why making you fly your flight planned route is "taking it out on the pilots"? As we are, you are paid to do a job - I don't get to go home any earlier if I give everyone a direct route so why are you different?

By keeping you all on-route this afternoon we are "punishing" the people who buy the gas.

We are also all fed up with the poor planning by your flight ops dept who won't file plans on CDR's! but I've already ranted on that in a different thread.

BTW
According to NATSNET the technical failure that caused this press release was fixed by 06:30. The WestEnd sectors were the ones mainly affected. 56 RYR flights had filed to fly thru these sectors 27 of which suffered delays of, between 7 and 42 minutes. 29 RYR flights were not delayed at all by ATC!

There is no smoke without fire.
Maybe there is a case to be answered, within NATS.

The service, is just that a service to promote a safe an efficient use of airspace.
Its the regular efficiency from management and equipment that may be lacking.
And there is a case to re-nationalise to keep costs to the user down.
Now I am posting to obtain a response, must be the environment.

NATS do a good job, but like many cost driven companies are under pressure from managers to achieve miracles.
Just like in many airlines, we all work in the same industry and need to work together, so to ell with management and their inane comments.

PS I dont work for RYR

And when staff said we were short staffed Mr O'Leary chose to believe the IAA's guff and accused us of being overpaid and under-worked, and denied we had any staff shortages...:yuk:

I was going for an even split between: paying to apply, paying for the interview, converting your JAA to IAA, the hotel which you dont get to choice, paying for the swimming pool for the life jacket stuff (which is my favorite of them all!). and paying to live during the first 6 months when you only get paid 9000 euro's? And am i right in thinking you have to buy bottles of water from them on board? - not sure about the last!

Not aimed at anyone who works for them. But i would love to meet the guy who decided crew should have to pay that much to work for them!

Until people starting saying no to deals like this, it aint going to get any better!

This is aimed at anyone who has ever sat down at the dinning room table with an offer letter from ryanair in one hand, and an offer letter from BA, or easy, or flybe (which seems as good a place as any to start off for new grads) in the other hand. And made the decision to go work for ryanair.

I am very sorry.

Apology accepted.

Just show me a guy or girl this year who has an multiple offer from any of the fore mentioned companies !!!
And if they didn't take BA they need their head read.

Even CTC require you to pay up front for their JOC course, before you can enter their holding pool in which many are still floating after having given up swimming its taken so long.
Then they get paid a pittance for 6 months whilst CTC cream off the money from the airline they are placed with. Even then there is no job guarantee at the end of the 6 months.

No such thing as a free type rating.

I said OR old boy!

...and BA type ratings are free, they don't even bond you!

Safe flying.

The airline is bringing unfavourable and unfair publicity on my job and employer.
As ATCOs we spend the day making "toss of the coin" decisions trading levels between inbounds and outbounds or choosing who will be number one. When there is no operational reason to guide us then Ryanair will naturally lose out.

Talk about shooting oneself in the foot. How much is Ryanair paying for fuel at the moment anyway?

DD

Hold on a minute - so we had a "minor" equipment failure this morning - Who doesn't every now and then?

I personally think that in the ATC environment us at London do a pretty good job in moving as many planes as we can as efficiently as possible - What I object to is the extra time we have to spend to make up for the inadequacies of individual airlines who won't invest money in making their operation as smooth as it can be but instead take the attitude that; "why should I do it if ATC will do it for me?"

I am not a management lacky but in this case I don't think NATS are to blame - If any of the RYR pilots read this who did not get a direct today, then I'm sorry to you personally but lobby your bosses to get things corrected.

The press release was smouldering on it's own - no fire down here!

slow down people, remember who said this bo11ocks
 

As a TC North and Midlands controller of over 10 years in the job I am a little bit embarrassed by all these anti RYR comments along the lines of no shortcuts, left bases..... etc

As we all know, if you have travelled as a passenger on RYR or from what you read and care to believe from the press, the company is run in its own individual way.

The comments from those at the top of RYR should not have any effect on how we handle their flights - I can only say I have always found RYR crew to be extremely helpful and understanding - completely opposite to the office bound cocks who produce such drivel that prompted the thread.

I imagine this must be of extreme embarassment and distaste to the crew flogging the Bog Basher's Boeings all day long.

We should continue to do our job as professionally and efficiently as we do every day, as I am sure the crew will do to.

For cadets there is no such thing as a free type rating even in BA.
The CEP salary is considerably lower than a DEP, so you end up paying in the end.
The same applies to many operations, significantly lower salaries in anything up to the first four years.

ATC if your having problems with an airlines flight plan routings or level filings then get your managers to write to the airline explaining your position.
Start a dialog with the companies and exchange constructive ideas so that both sides benefit.

Without each other neither can survive, nor can we work in isolation.

Sorry, but as an ATSA at MACC, I have had [at least] one delayed dep from LJLA per shift,this week.....:= which means [at least] a "hold" message, or even a Cnl and refile
watp,iktch

I'm tired of all these spelling mistakes. It's

rIAAnair

I'm using Google but cannot find any information anywhere which gives a figure for the fuel and time savings incurred by RYR as a result of NATS control teams giving them their optimum cruising levels (i.e. not those flight planned), direct routeings or shorter routes compared to those actually filed.

I wonder why....?

Totally agree with foo fighting. As a Liverpool ATCO, I have always found Ryanair crews to be extremely professional, as well as good humoured and understanding. No Captain Grumpies here! It would indeed be very unprofessional for NATS controllers to take it out on the crews. I don't believe many would in any case.This is a battle between the managements of RYR and NATS, neither of whom seem to know much about grass roots ATC ...

TC Controller here... I understand totally the frustration felt by Del Prado etc, but since when does stooping to MOL's level make us look good?

We should continue to provide the best service we can to all a/c; dong anything else will merely play into MOL's hands.

I think this talk of 'taking it out on the crews' has been taken out of context.

The way I see it is this:

Nearly every Ryanair flight these days askes for a cruising level which is different to that filed. Sometimes this is only a couple of thousand feet, but sometimes it is up to 10000ft different. Often the filed cruising level may be FL270 to avoid a high level slot restriction but the crew ask for FL370 on the frequency. They are often given climb as ATCOs try to help. On more than one occasion this has led to an overload of a sector further along the route which had not included the flight at its new level in its traffic volume.

From now on, it should be: you file it, you get it. If FL270 is the filed level, then that's what you get. If it means your fuel burn is higher than you expected, then file an ASR and ensure the company management know why.

The same is true of shortcuts: filed route is flown route.

That is providing the service as requested by Ryanair to the letter. MOL can't complain then.

Not having worked any RYRs for a few years now, I have no axe to grind. Still, I reckon it would be instructive to "work to rule" just for a week with RYR and see how they like it. It is, after all, completely reasonable to give only the flight planned levels, duty runways and standard speeds. None of the above can be termed "taking it out on the pilots" since they're being paid to do a job of work and no one is suggesting making that any harder for them!

If doing a favour for RYR will increase an ATCO's workload, at a time when most of us are pretty damned busy most of the time, it makes sense from a safety perspective NOT to do the favour. If that seems harsh, tough doodoo people. Most of us WANT to give our best and probably do more favours than we should.

So eyeinthesky please educate me, are you saying RYR are the only operator that does this? There are of course occasions where we might ask for a different level from the filed one due to changes from the planned weight and/or turbulence for example. As a professional pilot I would generally always ask for what I consider is the best FL irrespective of the filed level. Of course I understand that the requested level will not always be available.

This has understandably rattled a few cages.

Looks like Mr O'Leary is pushing the 'Noisy Wheel gets the Oil' barrow.
Not appreciated by ATCOs worldwide, Mr O'Leary.
Didn't his parents teach him about playing with others when he was growing up.

fireflybob

No, they're not the only operator who requests a different level. But most vary by a couple of thousand feet only ie. Filed 350 request 370. I can understand these variations could be down to load factors - and that's totally understandable and forgiveable. However filing 270 from EINN to LFOB then requesting 390 cannot be put down to any other reason than slot busting. The stupid thing is there often aren't restrictions higher anyway, RYR just thought there would be!

:ugh:In my experience no airline is worse than another for complaining (on the RT anyway etc) where RYR differs is the news releases. All these articles acheive is p**sing people off.

Most ATCOs realise that this isnt the opinion of the crew.

What I would like to see is more Area unit visits, I cant remember the last time I saw a pilot visiting the Ops room. If any aircrew want a visit to any of the units give them a call Im sure all the units are more than accomodating!

If anyone needs contact numbers etc just post and Im sure we can get them!

First they have a go at the Shannon boys because they had the audacity to request to work their rostered hours. Now, apparently, we have caused them lots of delays today. Well boo bloody hoo. What the Ryanscare management seem to ignore is that we are constantly giving them direct routes and more economic levels (never the level filed) to save them time and money on fuel. Well, as far I'm concerned, from now on they can whistle for it. What Michael and David and the rest of the middle management detritus have to come to terms with is that they are not the only airline we deal with, and they are certainly not the most important. It's a shame though because their pilots are actually quite switched on and are quite accomodating. But they're the guys that will suffer as this controller has taken the hump and it's back on route for the yellow harp. Well done Michael, I'm gonna cost you a fortune!

Just an observation, I have never seen so many RYR flights on their planned routes as I have today at ScACC.
At least the cockpit workloads will be down as there is no re-programming the waypoints LOL