Ryanair

[jayc004]

Contract

I'm about to sign my contracts for ryanair and CAE.

Starting to get alittle worried about it all now. Due to start very soon, and I have to say, the communications between CAE, Ryanair and myself have been very few and far between, but when i have asked a question, it may have taken 3-4 days for them to get back to me, but they did answer what i had asked. All however except what sort of deal, and contract we will be offered once the line training is completed. Ryanair are very good at avoiding that question so it seems.......

I also have had alittle bit of an experience of this whats being discussed here. Brookfields told me too that there was no such direct employment with Ryanair, and that all new cadet pilots are agency pilots, which is obviously not the case as i have the training contracts for Ryanair here infront of me.

[AreYouForReal]

Originally Posted by tablet

jayc004

I have two different contracts and I don't start until January.

I have a training contract from Ryanair which covers a 6 month period to include line training. Just this week I received a Brookfield contract which is for when I complete line training. This was despite being originally told I would not receive an employment contract until line training was complete.

I still have not received any concrete details of when I commence my induction and when the cost of Type Rating will be due.

Tablet

Did Brookfields or Ryanair tell you that the Brookfields contract is the employment one for once you have finished your line training? Whoever told you that u have to sign the brookfields is incorrect. Brookfields is an employment contract to be an agency pilot. Ryanair will offer u direct employment, and u will not be an agency pilot, but only once you have completed the line training!

Did u reply directly to paul deeves accepting the type rating date that they offered you in the congratulations email that he sent personally on the day of your assesment at EMA. If you did, then CAE or SAS will get in contact with you. SAS however are slower then CAE at doing this I believe.

Ryanair do not, and will not offer you a contract of employment for after the 6 months training one, UNTIL you are over half way through your line training. This is so if they decide they dont want you for what ever reason, they are not contractually bound to employ you.

Remember, if you are an agency pilot, you will only fly when Ryanair wants you to, otherwise, no flying, no money.

[Aloue]

It is giving Ryanair a really bad name.

They have had a bad name for some time. They do not care. They do not care because the supply of pilots willing to join in the hope of an airline job are SELF FINANCING AND A SOUCE OF PROFIT. Only, and only if, the supply of wannabes dries up is their the slighest prospect of them stopping. This is all about making money, not about having a good or a bad name.

[chikenscanfly]

In my humble opinion...

I have added the title to this reply above for a very good reason...
I used to be very active in this forum, until ryanair pilots were finally offered a secure discussion forum by IALPA and BALPA in which to discuss labour relations issues with ryanair, REPA.

Ill omit the link to REPA in this post, as its not fair on PPRune or the moderators who do a great job here...
However, they have felt how far ryanair goes to stir up a maelstrom of smoke and mirrors, intimidation and downright dirty tricks to reduce what they consider to be costs... terms and conditions (your salary)...
The sad truth is there was a large post on PPRune, spanning over 50 pages long, regarding ryanairs recent sudden reduction in pay and conditions back in April of 2004...
Ryanair brought the legal system to bear, and PPRune was forced to remove the thread...
To this day ryanair is still posting messages on PPRune, masqueraiding as pilots giving completely false information... Im not saying those giving an opposing view should be discredited, quite often they are genuine (including LeoHairyCamel if you can believe it!)...
But keep your wits about you...

I wont go any further into that, this is once again all my humble opinion...

You have to understand this about Ryanair, especially if you are considering to work for them...
Ryanair is an airline that has grown to become a strong market force in the supply of pilots... We hire truck loads every year and lose truck loads too...
it doesnt matter... Michael OLeary has rigged up the system to make money out of high staff turnover... He strives off it...
This is why you find you have to pay for ridiculous costs that in any other airline are covered by the employer... This is why Brookfield is snuggled up so close with Ryanair under the same dingy covers...

Sure, there is the argument then that you should ignore this, sign up, get your command and be gone in 3 years... easy come easy go...

But understand that this is already happening, and those who joined 3 years ago are now facing salaries up to half as much as what they were first promised... Suddenly the point of joining is lost in the continual reduction of pay and abuse of the labour force...

And the scary thing is the other airlines are taking note... There are already examples numbering dozens in Europe where ryanair-like tactics are being employed to reduce overhead costs by breaking employment agreements and cutting salaries across the board...

so ask yourself, did you really fork out up to 90K for initial training and a type rating to be paid peanuts and be kicked aroud every day for it?...

What you accept in Ryanair this early in your career will follow you wherever you go... It will tell Ryanair that the supply is still willing to sacrifice this much, and Ryanair can therefore lower the bar for the next set of people...
The competition sees Ryanair lowering the bar, and follow in Suite...
Give 3 years, you get your promotion, and line up for your 'real job' only to find the frusteration and s**t you thought you left behind is suddenly facing you at the doormat of your next prospective employer...

I should really stop this rant...
I dont mean to drive anyone away here... I still love this job for the basic thing im doing, but it frusterates the hell out of me to see how Ryanair continually drives pay conditions lower and lower to the point where there are now pilots taking on part time jobs to cover the gaps...
Just last week Ryanair announced captain salaries in Dublin were taking a 4k dive because "Passenger growth was only 24% compared to staffing costs which rose 32%"... I kid you not...

Keep your eyes open... Apply everywhere you can... Get that first job...
but be wary, especially with Ryanair, and do the maths and ask yourself the golden question... will it be worth it for what ive laid down so far?...

If you need to fork out 2500 for a selectionphase already, I think the answer is obvious...

[inveritas]

In the recent internal staff memo Ryanair made a statement that they has just 5 CP and 14 co-pilots leaving from Oct-Feb - three months. We all laughed and then they gave us the names - and yes it was true. So with 1600 pilots - 6 leaving a month is not big turnover. I'm not sure why it is so low now - possibly there is no where else to go!

[thebeast]

I know half a dozen people who have been through the Parc and 'extra' training route into Ryanair and all seem fairly happy with the outcome in fact in the grand scheme of things the outlay is quite small for that first job and i would say money well spent.

Also the only ones who have gone onto a Brookfield contract are those who get based in Dublin the rest are on Ryanair contracts (again i am talking about those folks i know but this is all very recent). From what i can tell the money seems fairly similar regardless.

[Gurney]

The Ryanair hours requirement for Cadets is 200 hours TT, but those with less than 200 hours are getting in via Se Pardy. You pay him for some sim time and he guarantees you an interview with Ryanair.

[dartagnan]

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/ryan.htm

tell me if you want work for an airline which respect his passengers so badly!
by selling them a service you will not provide by fear to be fired.

people have to be crazy to work or fly with them!

as a passenger, it is better to pay a little bit more with a respectable airline, and get a proper service , specially when they cancel the flight.
Ryanair 's pilots , I would feel very embarrassed by knowing you let your passengers anywhere knowing they will have lot of problems to reach their destination by themselves.

[planeshipcar]

With all repect to those witing on this thread but there is a slight irony.

You are in fact advertising the best and fastest route into Ryan for a cadet and for those with the cash who will be pleased to see how easy it is to get into Ryan.

The people who benefit more as this thread is prolonged is Parc, this Se guy and Ryanair.

Think about it!

[potkettleblack]

The people who benefit more as this thread is prolonged is Parc, this Se guy and Ryanair.

Don't the cadets get something out of it as well? Like 2 years and 1800 hours of 737NG time and the world is their oyster. Many will do a couple of years and move onto other carriers and be made for life. Yes they pay 25k or whatever the going rate is but what is the opportunity loss of earning £8k as an restricted FI for 3-4 years building up your hours before you can land something like a TP job and £22k a year? Of course the 2nd option assumes you can land a job in the first place which is no mean feat in itself. Would have thought the former was a reasonably wise investment is it not? Then again you could always go back to boring old day job that you promised yourself you would never do, forget all your IR training, send out countless cv's bemoaning those that have coughed up and spend all your savings each year on the IR renewal.

I say its horses for courses and good luck to anyone that goes down this path.

[planeshipcar]

I was not having a dig at the scheme I was talking to the guys who are not pleased with this set up and quite clearly they don't think the cadets are benfiting.

Please don't quote me for negatives against sstr.

cheers

planshipcar.

[b17heavy]

Potkettleblack

There is plenty on this, Aloue hit the nail on the head. It’s a money maker, nothing more. The sad part is that training and finance is hard enough without having it extended and having to struggle for another couple of years.

As for the argument that you will be set up for life. We don’t earn that much and medicals can be lost. It seems every year the ability to payback huge costs gets pushed further and further down the line and more is wanted up front.

Why people defend this is very strange. Adam Smith……justifications I suppose. Clear your mind of everything but the balance sheet and all is good. Now if you were a poker player….

[chikenscanfly]

Think About It

I understand peoples opinion regarding ryanair from outside of the company is different and what they see at face value appears not all that bad...

but rest assured, this is nothing more than a money-making scheme...

there are larger numbers of pilots leaving the company at current, much more than what Ryanair would like people to be aware about. To them information regarding how much they need new pilots is counter productive to their managerial tactics and objectives...
once they give people a sense of empowerment, they can no longer use intimidation to drive down costs...

as for it being worth it, there are many other job opportunities out there, even for low timer ab initio cadets...
I would highly recommend those looking to fish around a bit deeper before putting yourself up for an extra loan of 30K...

Ryanair isnt all glory with a couple of moaners hanging round online forums...
Cadets joining Ryanair now find their contracts and agreements changed almost daily, often leading to them earning not what was first promised, and quite often waiting up to 4 months between finishing their sims and starting with line training...
4 months without salary, and when you do finally start your net salary will max out at 1000 a month for a good 3 months...
its a long story, and they drag it out to keep the numbers artificially high whilst keeping the costs for them low... Cadets are a dime a dozen...

As for brookfield... its happening a lot at the moment, and oleary said he wants 40% of the company to be on contractual basis...
it goes deeper here too... hes punishing the current pilots who did not accept 'negotiated' contracts that were proposed last April... So those still on the old 5-3 deal are being put on standby to severely depress their salaries whilst those on the new deal are flying to the max...
mind you, its also cheaper for him that way... the new deal payrates are up to 15% lower than those in the original deal...

Its all very complex... To fully explain it would require an entire thread alone and most people would dismiss it as being made-up rants...
that in itself is shocking that things have come this far beyond the point of disbelief ...

If you feel you have to get into Ryanair, understand that you have been warned... Your colleagues on the other end will help you out as best they can, but in the end of the day you will have made your own bed, and the way things are going for current cadets that bed is looking like a pretty cold hard floor...
If you find another alternative check it out ofcourse, but I would recommend you go for that one instead (unless it is a severly worse deal)...

and about the matter of pay... new Ryanair captains are pulling as low as EUR 54,000 a year, and salaries have dropped amongst the pilots 15% from last year...

[nuclear weapon]

Hope airlines dont go the way of NHS.

I have watched this thread grow and have to add something important which can be viewed as a parrallel to what the airlines are going through and hopefully avoid the pitfalls of another industry.


I started working for the NHS in 1998 through an agency as a care nurse which anyone here can do with a day training. It was not uncommon for me to earn more than qualified nurses who went to train for three years. When we started discussing pay with the permanent staff they began to jump ship. Staff will then call in sick not becauce they are sick but because they want to go and work for an ageny at a different hospital to compensate thier mearge nhs salary.


To those of you wondering what I am on about imaging Scroggs telling virgin flight ops that he's sick and cannot work for one week. He then goes to work as a relief captain for say easyjet through an agency like Brookfields or parc and in that one week he earns the equivalent of 75% of his normaly 1 month salary with virgin. While the airline industry is still far away from this ridiculous situation ryanair seems to have set the wheels in motion albeit in slow motion. If the NHS was a private business it would have been bankrupt beyond salvage years ago.


If you dont believe it a lot of you guys here have sisters, mums or daughters that work as nurses in hospitals feel free to ask them. On one ward I used to work half of the qualified nurses regularly called in sick for absolutely no reason order than to go and work for an agency. Soon newly qualified nurses rather than apply to work in an hospital they went full time on agency and boy did they earn money!!


If you are wondering what effect this had on patient welfare that will require a different thread completly as this is not a nursing forum. The only thing I can say is that if anyone had a relative that was suffering from mental illness that needed treatment a couple of years ago I would advise the person to go private or give them emotional support at home rather than have them admited to some of the hospitals I worked in. Of course like most airlines the buildings look very beautifull from outside but then its whats going on inside that counts.


For about three years in to the job it was not uncommon when working in a ward and asking the qualified nurses how long they've been there fo them to say upwards of five six years and occasionally the older ones have been in the same hospitall for fifteen or more years. From 2002 upwards nurses hardly stayed in the same ward or hospital for more than a year before either quitting or joining the community. This wouldn't have been apparent as there was a constant supply from African countries and the Phillipines. They were tempted with good old British pound and tied up with five year work permits. If it was possible for Ryanair to lobby for this arrangement with pilots in the same way I'm sure Oleary would.


I knew a lot of qualified nurses that pulled in £47,000 a year before taxes working for agencies, this was as far back as six years ago. So when you switch on the good old BBC or read the guardian and they tell you hospitals are in deficit due to underfunding, and that labour should increase funding becauce the tories will cut it. I often came to the conclusion that some of the politicians and journalists should be the ones on the pshychiatric wards I've worked in.


The people that got rich of course was not the hospitals who thought they could foolishly save money by not having to worry about pension arrangements and unions but the agency owners who supplied the nurses (ctc, brookfield, parc and the rest of them) in the airline industry. After about six years of trial and error the nhs is only now coming to thier senses my friends that are qualified now have been offered better pay conditions as it is much better now to go full time. Sadly it has taken billions of taxpayers money which Gordon Brown still continues to ask for more with his obssesion with bearucracy and targets . So if you are wondering why there is so much fuss about a pension hole thats where part of the money went.


I've only just gotten my atpl so I am not in the industry now and dont admit to beign an expert but I am hoping those of you that are there already will not develop a false sense of security and a myopic focus on getting out of training debt which most of us have by accepting ridiculous working conditions in the name of achieving your dreams. If you are thinking only new joiners will be affected by the t&c's that is been offered by ryanair and the likes of them think again and you only need to look at the NHS. Eventually and not too long from now everyone will be affected, even those with thousands of hours on jet thinking they are safe. In the main time I need to fill more applications.

[Jinkster]

Originally Posted by dartagnan

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/ryan.htm

tell me if you want work for an airline which respect his passengers so badly!
by selling them a service you will not provide by fear to be fired.

people have to be crazy to work or fly with them!

as a passenger, it is better to pay a little bit more with a respectable airline, and get a proper service , specially when they cancel the flight.
Ryanair 's pilots , I would feel very embarrassed by knowing you let your passengers anywhere knowing they will have lot of problems to reach their destination by themselves.

Dartagnan - I have been following your posts over the past few months and have to say - you moan about being unemployed and i suppose you will moan if employed!!! Ok - Ryanair do have some strange or different ideas but can anyone actually say they know someone IN RYANAIR that hates it and cannot wait to get out......? I know a good few people in Ryanair and they cannot say one bad word about it!

[Aloue]

I know a good few people in Ryanair and they cannot say one bad word about it!

Wow! Great news. If you know so many people in Ryanair maybe you could help those of us who are confused by letting us know what they tell you is the reason behind all the unhappy Ryanair pilots (or do they not know any either?).

[scroggs]

Once again, I refer you to a thread in 'Terms and Endearments' - Ryanair CUTS new captains' pay. For those of you who find this strange, I refer you to this post, where I explained the mechanism that can result in ever-reducing salaries (in real terms). Ryanair pilots have absolutely no union protection - and are persecuted by the company should they try and promote the establishment of a union - so terms and conditions are entirely in the company's gift, with no representation from the workforce. The downward pressure on salaries from those who are happy to work for little or nothing when they first start is obvious - and this kind of thing is the result.

Scroggs

[arnchristensen]

I know several ryanair pilots, three fo's all came in as cadets and a captain, all of them are more than happy with the stability in their roster and their pay in the company. how you can dislike the company so much without having worked there is beyond me.

be bonded for five or more years or pay upfront, who cares it all more or less ends up costing us the same, i agree there are other jobs, great ones too, but you just can't totally dismiss an airline that big, europes newest fleet of 737's and a constant growth, right...

arn

[Jinkster]

Agreed - totally!

[Carmoisine]

Jinkster I have read your recent posts with interest. This is a username I have because I feel I need to be protected from my employers if I dare to speak out. I have known you for a while and we communicated by PM and I know you to be a good and reasonable person. I understood your motivations for looking for a job from Ryanair.

Unfortunately as Scroggs says your very motivation to get a job leaves us all open to wild exploitation. How I have changed my tune from when I was on these forums as a wannabee. I thought Scroggs was a stuffy old Dinosaur, who was rather pompous and arrogant when he spoke of the way we were destroying our own futures. Some years into my airline career I now see exactly what he was talking about. Ryanair is a very ruthless employer. Just this weekend we had 12 Pilots in STN suspended en masse, the details are not out yet, but you wouldn't believe some of the details. Now that you are Ryanair you should log on to www.repaweb.org, just today I read a story about an outrageous salary cut that FR gave Pilots transferring to CRL when that base opened.

As for leaving? Well all those guys and girls who were hoping to get some hours ASAP and then jumpship find that all the other jobs out there waiting for them have the same terms and conditions, oppresive bonds and lack of respect from management.