To FMC apprentice and VS: I cannot believe that you don't have the balls to put your ideas to management. What are they going to do, fire you?

I hope that when and if you end up in the left seat that you learn to act responsibly and effectively when trying to deal with a problem instead of gossopping around like old ladies sowing seeds that serve to undermine what the rest of us are trying to achieve in Ryanair. Grow up and approach your manager! They do listen and they do read pprune!

You MUST pass this info on guys - it's not acceptable to have to suffer someones elses cancer gas on the flightdeck:mad: :mad:
DSR 10 - I've never said this one to anyone on prune (although I've had my disagreements) but you are a Fu*kwit of the highest order. Other peoples smoke is VILE....

TRFwhatever - dubious health issues, you are a bit dim aren't you:confused: :confused: Your lungs are designed for AIR, not 40 different types of cancer inducing sh1te.

Smoking on the flightdeck is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Wake up to the 21st century.

Jambo Buana! Your attitude is typical about what I hear from my friends in FR! It seems not to be an airline where people can safely raise issues of concern-- all the FO's I know there tell me that the best way to survive is to be invisible and I am sure that also goes for most Captains! One has only to look here on Pprune-- which major airline is not represented in the company forums? As far as I am aware there is no system in your airline to allow for anonymous discussion like that which occurs here?
In my company Flight Deck smoking died out years ago and I was surprised to read here that this is not the case at FR.
Assuming that you are management-- your tone suggests that- then now is the time to do something about it.

Mark my words. It's only a matter of time....

I don't think I have heard so many holy rollers banging of on one thread since I discovered pprune. What a good and righteous bunch we have in aviation nowadays.

When I started my career in aviation everybody but everybody smoked on the flightdeck.

I have moved on from that and do not any longer allow smoking up front but I am just dreading the day when all these young clean holy rollers start trying to ban farting in the cockpit.

That will truly be the end.

The company thinks it liability will be reduced by renewing the no smoking instruction. Perhaps they think the liability can be passed on to non complying captains. Should those concerned be more carefully considering their position? They could be invalidating relevant insurance by not informing insurance company of this situation. Even this PPRuNe post could be part of the evidence that they should have reasonably known their instruction is ignored. Its a bit unlikely that offending captains have valid insurance if a F/O takes civil action. Could they be in a position where savings, house, car and retirement funds are at risk?

Lost Soul; I am not a manager, but I do believe that the Flight Crew Instruction raised by CP on the subject is evidence that they do listen. It is another matter if one, or some of our colleagues decides to ignore an instruction from the CP. I guess their remedial therapy will be starting shortly at the job centre.
As for my attitude, it is a can do positive attitude of someone who loves flying, gets on with his job and doesn't think twice to tell management that they can do something better. I have been here for more than 6 years and things only get better. We are no longer just a bunch of paddy's taxiing too fast and flying on the barbers pole. I just wish that some of our guy's had the balls to put their point across directly to a manager rather than whimper on here. That's all.

fmc apprentice,
Some sad answers to your original enquiry,esp from Airbus girl.Etiquete is that the smoker should ask if its okay before lighting up.You are then quite at liberty to say "Rather you didnt."That should be the end of it.
When I started flying many moons ago,I can assure you that neither the Captain or FE asked my permission to smoke.I didnt feel the need to whinge but everyone's different I guess.Times have changed and in todays politically-correct flt deck,you sound like you will fit in very nicely.If you ever decide to leave that lovely sceptred isle and seek a career as an expat pilot,I would watch the remarks about those nasty "foreigners" though.

This reminds me of the Steve Martin comedy line when someone asks ,"Mind if I smoke?"

He replies, "Mind if I fart?"

Smokers don't get this joke.

MS

As for DSR10 being a f*** wit I couldn't agree more. " Use the oxygen..." Cancer would be the least of his immediate worries!!:mad:

Rananim, when you started flying medicine had not even begun to appreciate the dangers of passive smoking. What you view as 'PC whinging' I, and most others here, view as the basic right of employees to work in a safe and smoke-free environment. How many junior F/Os do you think would have the balls to say 'Rather you didn't' to a senior Captain? It should be the end of it as you say, but is it in practice?

The claim that 'we all did it in the good old days, therefore it must be OK' is complete nonsense. You might as well say it is OK to fly an aircraft blind drunk. Some of the older generation think it's OK to drive home slaughtered on booze because it was previously tolerated. Doesn't mean it was safe.

I find it ludicrous that Ryanair allow this kind of behaviour, and I hope this thread will mean management their get off their backsides and impose and enforce a blanket ban, for all the reasons given earlier - to summarise:

- Health risks to non-smoking flight deck crew
- The unpleasant smell and smoke in the tiny cockpit environment
- The absence of basic CRM in airline Captains who should know better
- The serious fire risks, in a place where fires are at best very dangerous and at worst lethal for hundreds
- The utter hypocrisy of banning all pax from smoking while allowing crew to smoke
- Any pilot who cannot safely perform his duties without nicotine in his veins should not hold a Class 1 (or should I say any pilot who can't fly without taking drugs, since that is what we are talking about)
- Ryanair's risk of being dragged into a multi-million pound litigation over a passive smoking related disease, in which the evidence would have to show only that the illness was on the balance of probabilities caused by long term exposure to passive smoking at work.


Good luck fmc-apprentice, hope you find that this thread filters back to your bosses. It will, they all read this site. Your unwillingness to speak up in the company context is quite understandable as a junior F/O, so it is fortunate that you have been able to draw attention to this problem anonymously here. Before the internet, I guess these grievances were just not voiced.

Edit - just read the rest of the thread, looks like management have already acted ;)

Assuming that not only Ryanair management read these pages, but also other Ryanair employees, such as Captains and LAME's, how about giving some assistance to these guys.

Next time you find evidence of a smoker(s) having "done it" in the cockpit of an aircraft that you take over, why not make an entry in the Tech Log, eg, "Cockpit smells of cigarette smoke - please clean", or, "Ashtrays, side console, and floor covered in cigarette ash - request cleaning".

It worked here, for me :D

One of the easiest solutions is to finish your trip with the smoker and on return to home, or better even on your layover, report sick. Make it very clear to the medical authorties that your sickness is related to smoke exposure. Also let the company now why you reported sick. You be surprised how quick your problems are solved.

Smoking
 

Bite Me.

Your anti smoking tirades are bizarre.

If two people in an enclosed enviroment can't get along and work out who smokes and who doesn't, that's too bad.

We do not need a law to mandate behaviour.

When you restrict one persons freedom, you restrict ALL persons freedom.

That is finite.

Today, smoking is bad. Where do you draw the line?

PB

I’ve carried the following in my wallet on a business card sized piece of cardboard. It’s damn near got me into a few fights in bars in the past, although I find that if it’s done with humour – making sure everyone in the circle gets to see it by passing it to someone other than the offender first – it normally draws a few laughs while getting the message across.

I suffered captains who smoked, usually getting out of my seat and staying the forward galley whenever they lit up. However, I didn’t have the cojones of one colleague who unstrapped and stepped from his seat at 15,000’ on descent into Heathrow when his heavily addicted captain lit up. When the startled captain asked what he was doing, he told him he had the choice –do without the ciggie or continuing the approach and landing on his own.

In the days when smoking was still allowed, absolutely no smoking on MY flight deck was one of the sweeter points of being a captain. Many of my FOs went down the back to indulge their habit, stinking of smoke when they returned.

JB and Kaptin M-- you obviously have not had contact with pilots working for FR as I have. Anyone writing in the tech log for any reason other than a genuine engineering defect would be summoned to appear before the base captain and severely disciplined! As for taking sick leave when not actually at death's door? The same applies! From what I am told the reason nothing happens about the smoking problem is that it is seen as "whingeing" and the person complaining would just be told to shut up or get out! This is not your chummy old-fashioned airline of yore!

What I used to do, when the guy lit up, especially without seriously asking:

Stay relaxed.
Do everything according to the book.
Look out to your right window.
Open up the air outlet near your right knee (the 732, 733 etc. had one there) all the way.
Without even looking at him, point the airstream right in his face, so that he gets the ashes all over him or even blow the cig out of his face.
Act like you didn´t even notice he was smoking, should he start complaining...

or:

Go and take a pee every time he starts to smoke....

Also, a word of warning. If the Company do get told that a Captain has been smoking and an investigation is carried out, beware - I was in this situation (Captain reported by junior Cabin Crew member (and later sacked)) - and I got summoned to HQ. They then tried to implicate me, asking me why I hadn't reported him smoking!!!! So be ready....

These days it's so much easyer to alienate a smoker than it used to be in the past.
My advice is this - If you don't want to get your name involved, then just write to management anonymously, explaning the problem and that you obviously want to protect your identity.
Alternatively, canvass some other FO's and go to management with a number of you signing a letter.
This must be stopped!

I am currently a smoker. Years ago i received an envelope full of ashes and butts from my chief pilot. Back then, i was told to CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF...and i learned the lesson.
Since then if my co-pilot is a non-smoker, I simply don´t smoke.
The scare fotos are out of place. We smoker/flyers are well aware of what damage we do by inhaling, and well aware of how irritating it surely is to you non-smokers.
But how about a look at the manufacturers;the governments that count on the taxes,the smoke/alcohol culture so cleverly let-off the hook...
I as a smoker, choose to smoke.
I as a smoker choose to give the non-smoker preference.
Very simple, but you radicals shouldn´t have it all your way either!

Smokin' in the boys room....
 

Heaven forbid there should be a "smoking related incident" while a "Law Suit Happy U.S. Passenger" be onboard. Nothing will save you if it's an attorney on holiday, as well. :} :uhoh:

<Long time lurker, first time poster.... Please be gentle with me....

I read this thread with a mixture of disgust and horror. I always thought of Ryanair of a very good and "modern" company. What I read now is absolutely not understandable. I will never fly with this company. Smoking commanders are the smallest issue here. I am surprised that there has never been an accident/incident yet. What worries me most is that even when management is implying rules they are neighter followed nor checked... :eek:

smoke
 

you sad lot specially you fms,go and report the smoker and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

in my company f/o report captains for reading a newspaper on the f/d or even increasing his cruise speed.
cabin crew report capt's and f/o for being too laid back or even smoking 100 meters away from the a/craft.

unfortunately the job has lost its appeal because of people like you trying to be .................?

best of luck

(a non smoker myself ):* :* :*

Spy in the cab !!
 

Magoo are you unfortunate enough to work for easyjet ?.

Possible answers to 'Do you mind if I smoke'

It is not so much wether I mind but I beleive it is illegal. You are the captain though so do as you please.

I find the question a bit confusing in the light of the recent Flight crew notice.

I beleive in SOP's and in doing things by the book so I rather you didn't.


this mght not work with some people, but then you must know which fights to win and which is better to let go. I beleive that everybody knows the dinosaurs and they always get their tea and bisquits in the end. You cannot combat bad CRM with more bad CRM.

I am pleased to say that the issue would not arise in my airline, thank god.

Argue and you lose....
 

Some years ago while working for a south asian airline, reported at dispatch to find the co-pilot madly puffing away on no less than two, and announcing his intentions to one and all that the recent directive to flight crew to not smoke on the flight deck, period, was nonsense. Smoking was still allowed in the cabin.

The dispatcher called the DFO and said co-pilot announced his opinions directly, IE: ..."it is my right to smoke".

The co-pilot was no more...replaced for the flight and employment terminated, forthwith.

411A, I wish I’d kept score of the number of your tales related to your captive audience here on Pprune that ended in “…and the FO in question was terminated.”

No guesses required as to who you’d be voting for on Oct 7th if you lived a tad west of where you say you live.

I’m of the rabidly anti-smoking persuasion, to the point where I avoid eating with cabin crew on overnights because I can’t handle the number who insist on lighting up, some even during the meal. As for appropriate replies to the dreaded question: “Do you mind if I smoke?”, my usual answer was “My dear, you can burst into flame as far as I’m concerned – but not here.”

Back in the days when smoking was still allowed on the flight deck in my current company, I had an almost surreal in cruise conversation with the airline’s CRM co-ordinator, who asked me, whilst puffing on a coffin nail, what I thought of the CRM programme. I said that I thought one of biggest failures in CRM I’d ever seen was the way smokers lit up in the cockpit when they knew their FOs found it distasteful.

His reply was classic “But I always make a point of keeping the cigarette as far away from the FO as possible.” And he actually did – ciggie in left hand, held almost up against the side window whenever it wasn’t in his mouth – and he actually believed this was saving me from breathing in his smoke.

Having a non smoking section in an aircraft cabin or restaurant is like having a non pissing end in a bathtub.

Edited for font size - and Staffer, I was expecting a reply along the lines of yours (below), but call me totally unsocial, but I find it difficult to enjoy my food while the young woman (the offender is almost always a female) is puffing away on a *** cigarette while i'm eating.

A filthy dirty habit that infringes on the rights of others that has no place in a modern workplace environment. If you had seen the outflow valves that were removed from DC-9 type aircraft when smoking was common place you would be shocked. Companies should enforce no smoking in airplanes rigidly or face litigation down the track as the community becomes more litigious.
I have worked for companies where crew were given the option, respect the non smoking rule or resign. All except the odd despot stopped smoking in aircraft.
:}

Andu,
I think I'd rather share the flight deck with a smoker...

Speaking as a non pilot but with awareness of Human Resource affairs, if a first officer or anyone else reports a Captain for smoking on the flight deck is consequently sacked then there is a strong case for unfair dismissal.

In any case, if the issue is reported to HR then they have to right to remain anonymous, therefore 'management' won't be able to dismiss them

Such touching naïvete.

Hellooooo....
 

'Gotta remember GlueBall...
Most of these guys are from Europe (and the UK, where they have just recently discovered Hoovers) and the anti-smoking brigade that had caught on so successfully on the western side of the great devide, is only just (more or less) established in the old country.

ill never regret having a smoke at 28000ft in my metro with a night sunset ...nobody to bother just DHL boxes...
VIVA AMERICA
Flyer75

411A
Would have been a good line if we hadn't actually invented vacuum cleaners.

Unless you meant the all-American J.Edgar?

Yes I know strafer, a fine old English company.

Pity a few hotels that have 'em don't use 'em to vacuum up the ashes.
In no-smoking rooms yet....:oh:

naïve?!?
 

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
......is consequently sacked then there is a strong case for unfair dismissal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Such touching naïvete.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

:eek:

Are you people seriously saying that you risk loosing your job for complaining that a colleague is breaching regulations?

I find this very worrying. Like sombody has already pointed out, the flightdeck smoking (and seemingly powerless FOs) seems like a symptom of a more serious problem.
Also, I'm not particularly anti-smoking but why can't some smokers see how anti-social this is in such a confined environment? :confused:

"ill never regret having a smoke at 28000ft in my metro with a night sunset ...nobody to bother just DHL boxes..."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You will regret it if some of the hot ash you guys carelessly flick away ends up behind you. Boxes are a lot more flammible than people!!!

MidnightSpecial-good one, but it was George Carlin, not Steve Martin. :O

smoking in flightdeck
 

Dear Flyboyben,

I appreciate your point of view but just as an info, we actually do no sit on the freight,its further back,far enough for no ash to fly there still red hot ,get under the net,find a highly flammable piece of mail...AND the all our metros were fitted with ashtrays...nice little silver ones below the pilots side windscreen...very convenient for long lonely night flights...


Tailwinds,

Flyer75

Oups I forgot to mention...when taking off at 6 in the morning, nothing better than your fav cd tune in one hear to enjoy with scenary of empty and clear skies while commuters get slowly but surely stuck into the first traffic jam of the day....
When safely in cruise add the second one and work disappears into a feeling of pure happiness...until the descent towards a crowded earth...

Flyer75