Ryanair worry the heck out of me and many other professional pilots

[ifleeplanes]

Hummm Yup I have seen many a brand new 737-800 having its engine changed for an older one Best we recall all the old 200s and get rid of these clapped out new 800s ...?????

As for steering this debate...B*** I am standing up for the professionalism of the pilots in Ryanair who endure abuse at the hands of management and now face it from the rest of you so called professionals.

Limits are limits, we dont exceed them we may fly to them on occassion but not often. A FTL is a limit as is a DA , do you not fly to DA? And yes we do increase the DA if the weather is poor and we feel it warrants it.

And as for drink limits I think there are a few airlines represented within this debate who shouldnt be throwing stones!! Ryanair isnt one of them!

This thread as as per normal just turned into Anti Ryanair bashing, but this time with the slant towards the pilots. Your a disgrace, I will no longer debate this issue since you all talk from ivory towers and know NOTHING except to believe in the spin and hype you all spout. Grow up...you are demonstrating the qualities you all are so careful to critise.

[Aloue]

Mr. Lancaster says...

We have the most adavanced AFDM monitoring system available which is actioned upon if required ........

But since there is no agreement with the pilots.... what protections are there against abuse ..... so what does "actioned upon if required" mean?

You sound quite happy in your little world of perfection. Long may you live in bliss.

[captplaystation]

Makes a change for those of us on here who actually know something about Ryanair (i.e.the ones who actually work for them) to find ourselves actually defending them.From the other side there is an incredible amount of ill-informed tosh being bandied about.I've been around the block a bit in Europe and have been very pleasantly surprised by RYR operating standards in most respects including the abilities/motivation of our cadets( hamsters would never understand the incentive to excel provided by spending your own money!).Unenlightened man management seems to be endemic in most companies I've encountered,at least in RYR the knife goes straight in the chest under your eyes and not between the shoulder-blades several months/SIM-RIDES later.The sad fact unfortunately is that our esteemed leader cannot see what a potent asset this latent employee fidelity could be to his global vision.T'was always thus, shame he cant see the wood for the trees.

[Ennie]

Saw a Ryanair flight last week arrive in a blizzard, minus 3 degrees, on the ground for thirty five mins, saw no walk round, no engineers walking round, departed with no de icing. Fair enough, no problem, but come on, lets keep it safe.

[captplaystation]

More and yet more tosh, dont think the spectators balcony at EIN(?) without access to either the A/C or the relevant RYR documentation is a suitable location/platform to question crews judgement/ application of procedures."Spectators Balcony " is always available for this sort of thing; unless of course you want to consult your spotters notebook and give us date, flight No .oh and (of course) registration of the "offending " flight;then the crew can either consider their actions or defend themselves if appropriate.Please try and consider that maybe, just maybe we are just as professional/ no more(or less) fallible than all the other companies you wouldnt dream of criticising on a public forum.Like it or otherwise that is the fact of the matter as most un-biased proffesionals would suspect.

[Ennie]

Cantplaystation, how does in the flight deck of another airliner sat next to the Ryanair sound??
As you say...yet another, I say....yet another...potential accident.

[classjazz]

Ryanair worries the hell.......

Avoiding some of the pitfalls created by earlier contributors can I just go back to the beginning and tell you why Ryanair do concern me. My background (45 years) is entirely aviation, military and commercial from ground servicing to flight engineering and airline management of training. Now I look at other airlines operations purely from a passenger point of view - and it is that which concerns me. An earlier correspondent mentioned the lack of de-icing and walk round checks during a QTR. Yes - this happens and is an inevitable consequence of commercial pressures. The Captain makes the decision and that is it. But it is the cabin crew that mostly concern me.
I recently travelled on a Ryanair -800 and watched with professional interest as the cabin crew "performed" their demonstrations. I don't think that I have ever seen a better example of a c/c being utterly bored with their lot. The demonstration was out of synch with the audio and was utterly slapdash. When the c/c attempted to point out the emergency exits I took out of the seat pocket, the safety card only to find that it describing the exits on a -200 series. Although I could see from looking out of the window that it was an -800, I asked one of the girls if she could confirm that the aircraft that we were traveling on was indeed an -800 series. She looked at me as though I had just landed from another planet and walked away.
I did some research (just to make sure about the exits) and indeed did find that the position of the exits on the -800 series were diferent to the -200. I also came across the incident at Stansted where the cabin crew had attempted to push the pax out of an exit close to a burning engine. Fortunately the fire crew had resisted this attempt. But it did confirm my views about the standard of cabin crew training.
I e-mailed the IAA and they confirmed that the situation I described was lacking in professional competence and they would investigate. Subsequently I took a call from the IAA officer responsible, who told me that (surprise, surprise) they had since checked all other aircraft belonging and all the safety cards were correct for the type of aircraft. "As you know" he said, "this sort of incident goes through airlines at the speed of light so......" He left the rest of sentence hanging in mid air. I also got the impression - from the rest of the conversation - that RyanAir are subject to more checks from both the CAA and IAA than is perhaps normal and certainly that I had come across before retirement.
I have no criticism of the flying side of RyanAir and commend their time keeping BUT the cabin crew are a different matter. Hopefully my comments to the IAA will have prompted a "behind the scenes" action plan. I will not willingly travel with RyanAir again so may never see any improvement.

[captplaystation]

Ennie; I,m very glad for you that your employer allows you the spare time neccesary to monitor another crews performance whilst no doubt giving due attention to your own.I would still be very surprised if any of my fellow crew knowingly departed with wing contamination,the well known Non-environmental-icing problem on the 737NG means that we have de-icing avail at the most unlikely locations/times and I have never seen crews shy away from using it.Our management have issued numerous Memos on the subject and you can be sure that they and Boeing are only too aware of the problem;any crew going down that road are totally on their own as regards adherence to SOP,s .I can assure you 100% that we are under no,and I mean NO commercial pressure as regards de-icing;with our tankering policy it is a daily complication for us.If it was any other way believe me I wouldnt deny it on an anonymous forum;I have kids at home too,and we are most certainly not the cowboys some would like to portray (usually to suit their own agenda).To answer the very original posting,what do you expect in a world driven by greed and run by accountants? A ******* miracle is not about to happen in this dog eat dog world.As I discovered a long time ago, just get on with it and look after your Life your License,and your job,never forgetting that order of importance.Stay safe stay standard guys and gals.

[caulfield]

I worked for Ryanair and the rumours are true.
Good points(every airline must have some good):
i)they are successful(economically that is)and provide jobs to many
ii)they enable poor people to travel by air
iii)they pay well
But that really is about it.
Bad points/
i)90% of all people who work for Ryanair are rude SOB's...they cant help it...its de rigueur..if they ever left Ryanair,they'd probably be quite okay
ii)strong arm tactics against pilots..including but not limited to abuse of contract pilots(I was one) who dont conform to the Orwellian nightmare that is Ryanair..and if you dont join the club,they have some very handy little loophole's that work to their advantage..future Ryanair contractors be warned.
iii)Problems stem from the top as with all companies...its just not good business acumen to have an annoying little weasel as your CEO...and the chief pilot is a joke...no tea and biscuits with him,he doesnt even know your name,he doesnt want to know your name and if you have a safety concern or a problem,get a dog or a psychiatrist
iv)they'll do crazy things like send you to Bergamo to do a flight and then find that there's already a Captain rostered for that flight so the whole trip was a waste of time...and they dont apologize...no way,forget it.
v)a lot of Dutch/belgian F's with 250 hours who think they know it all...thing is they're in hock with Ryanair and love the company because they do a lot of hours..woe betide if you get on the wrong side of this bunch..they make great spies for the Orwellian nightmare
vi)cabin crew are mostly a friggin nightmare..they must all come from the same backward town in essex or some godawful bogtown in Limerick...only nice ones were Spanish or Italian.
vii)most pilots are usually gentlemen..i mean you may not like someone but you recognize that he's straight-up...well,here they're breeding the new generation and its decidedly blue collar..of course,there are some nice pilots in Ryanair,but they'll get weeded out pdq
viii)They treat their passengers just like their staff...badly.Rememeber that awful TV program Airline where a bunch of people dressed in orange T-shirts were caught on camera being rude to their adoring public..magnify that fivefold and you've got Ryanair.

I could go on but whats the point anyway...

[FlyingIrishman]

Caulfield no wonder you didn't stick it at Ryanair - with an attitude like that they did a very good job weeding you out very quickly. I would disagree that 90% of Ryanair are SOBs as you put it so nicely - one thing the airline has got going for it is that 90%+ are actually excellent people to work with, and that's including the chief pilot who is a true gent.

I don't dispute that there are crewing issues like you've described but in my experience that was only a very odd occasion. As far as the Dutch and Belgian FO's are concerned, yes there are a few bad eggs, but that has nothing to do with nationality. Cabin crew work extremely hard and I suppose you see yourself far superior to "godawful Limerick and Essex backwaters". All I can say to you is good riddance!! And to use your words again, I could go on but what's the point anyway...

[CarltonBrowne the FO]

I am not a defender of Ryanair, I have never worked for them, flown as a passenger with them, or applied for a job with them. However, in all the airline jobs I have ever had, I have never been able to watch the aircraft parked beside me constantly enough to say no one did a walk round. The only way I could monitor them that closely would be by neglecting my own duties.
Frankly, a spotter in the gallery would have a better chance of knowing a walk round had been missed!
Edited for spelling.

[captplaystation]

We have many excellent Dutch F/O ,and lost a few who left with mutual empathy, I leave you to draw your own conclusions where our observant Dutch Co-Pilots interests in this matter stem from.

[TwoDeadDogs]

Hello all
With regard to the argument about old or new, well, the reality is that new aircraft can and do go u/s just as fast as the old ones. Airbuses are probably no better than Boeings on that one. Any pilot who has ever conducted an acceptance test flight will be well aware of how the factory can put pressure on the customer to accept the aircraft "without faults". As for routine line flying, there are two kinds of pilots, those who will go with snags( for fixing later) and those who won't. The engineers know how far to go, when asking a pilot to "carry" a snag. Every engineer knows which aircraft in the fleet are the "snaggy" ones.
As for the erosion of T and Cs, it starts at the top when the senior pilots allows it to begin. The old sweats in FR should have stopped the rot but didn't. Giving the new guys a hard time about buying their way in and accepting lesser contract standards is partly justified but the aim should also be directed at their forebears.
regards
TDD

[matblack]

As a frequent flyer I choose not to fly Ryanair. This is not because I doubt the pilots ability in any way but because of my concerns over the attitude of the CEO. In my business activities (non aviaition) I do observe situations from time to time that used to happen 20 years ago but ought not to occur in this modern legislative day and age. These situations occur often in large multinational companies with high profile safety cultures. Such "breaches" in safety procedures generally occur due to the fear of failure to meet operational targets. This fear is driven frequently by the culture of the senior management. My "boycott" of Ryanair may be ill founded but as a paying customer that's my choice. My concern is more for the background activities such as pressure on despatchers & maintenance managers. With the introduction of new compensation schemes from the EU I fear that pressures may lead to one corner cut too many. This could equally apply to any airline, I accept. It's just that CEO...

[Say Mach Number]

Having read and contributed to this thread and in my mind felt it had been put to bed. Couldnt help but notice the 'MK overrun' story sitting above this thread. A 747 overruns and there are 3 responses!

As someone commented on that thread 'not MK again!'

Yet have not seen any "MK worry the hell out of me and many other professional pilots" threads appearing.

We have an impeccable safety record at FR yet we get absolutely hammered on these forums. Much of it safety related and most of it bull.

Sometimes I think people feel its trendy to bash the lads and lasses at FR.

[Runway 31]

Having read through this thread I wonder if professional should be included in the title. If the responses given indicate the professionalism of the individuals concerned, god help us all.

[Aloue]

To those who think Ryanair endures unfair comment on PPRuNE

The central issue is whether or not there is substance to the repeated claims made about Ryanair.

We have claims being made about FR safety with which I do not agree. There is little appreciation of the fact that much of FR training is often much better than in comparable airlines, etc. etc. But, the fact that silly or unrealistic claims are being made does not disprove the thrust of many of the posts made in a wide range of posts over the past year or so.

The recurrent theme is one of systematic abuse and exploitation of employees, including bullying and intimidation. The airline conducts itself in a "robust" manner at all times and has even used its legal advisors to demand removal of a threat from PPRuNe - apparently because of the repeated assertions that a "fear culture" does indeed exist.

Either these claims of emploitation and abuse have substance, or they do not. There is either a "fear culture" or there is not. Apologists for Ryanair - and Mr. Lancaster comes to mind since he is one of the more recent - always seem to appeal to some supposedly positive side of Ryanair without ever addressing the "fear culture" issue (almost as if it was something to be endured).

Does this mean that they (a) are blind to its existence, (b) are apologists, or even management "in disguise", (c) do not care for anything other than money, or, (d) that Ryanair is unfairly accused of having such a culture?

Swopping insults does not take us any closer to finding out if the widespread perception of Ryanair is justified. But the claims are insistent, repeated across all levels of the organisation and give rise to concern at all levels except, apparently, where it counts in terms of having it investigated and sorted out one and for all.