On strike with Ryanair!

[ballyboley]

Day_Dreamer, nice post especially considering you dont work for Ryanair. Just because we are having these issues at present doesn't make us better or worse pilots does it? As for our french friend who has decided we are all assholes, I dont think its worthy of a reply. Just because the company is they way they are doesn't make those of us who work there any different.


Ryanair isn't such a bad place to work, the issue is that slowly and steadily they are reducing terms and pay, but quite happily making money in the process. If the company was in financial meltdown, then the steps could perhaps be justified. But the problem is that it will continue to happen and there is nothing in place to stop it. Lots of people saying BALPA isn't the answer, so what is the answer? Just be glad we have a nice roster and still earn more money than being unemployed and let them continue?

RAt5, I believe the pilots were the only staff who "agreed" to a pay deal whereby if the company posted 2 periods of loss the allowances could be chopped.

[Fightback Fred]

Lots of people saying BALPA isn't the answer, so what is the answer?

Actually I think you will find a lot of people are saying recognition is the only option.

You can harp on that its ok for you, and if so, good for you. But for many it isn't. In fact it is anything but OK.

Ryanair management have not honoured many contracts or allowed for anything slightly approaching genuine negotiations. They do as they will, dish out what the feel like, regardless of the human cost and expect you to roll over silently everytime.

And thats just the contracts, beyond that there is intimidatory behaviours as the latest bullying memo shows and people are just sick and tired of it.

I don't think this is about BALPA trying to force recognition on the airline against the pilots will. I reckon its that enough pilots have had enough of the constant and ever continuing shafting at every opportunity.

The majority will decide, and if pilots do vote in favour, then MOL, DOB and EW only have themsleves to blame.

BALPA may not be perfect but it by far the lesser of 2 evils.

If the union gets in management threaten to make roster 5/3 with 5/2 six times a year and remove allowance.

Is anyone dumb enough not to realise that is not the next thing they will do regardless of recognition. Look at new Italian bases, 5/3 contracts.

People moving bases getting offered less money, the deterioration merry-go-round will never stop.... NEVER

With recognition you have a chance, without one the future is inevitable. And what they threaten to do to you with a union they will do without one anyway.

[fade to grey]

well,
If its your first job you don't have much choice if you have the cash....

Ok so you can make some money at Ryan by working your balls off in, what seems, a climate of hostility and intimidation:but as we all know money isn't everything.

I do my best for the company I work for because I feel a part of it, and because of respect for those running it and what we are trying to do.How I would feel and motivate myself at a company where the top man quite clearly detests his staff i have no idea....

[Rednex]

Biz Airfrance, are you claiming that there is something inferior with Irish people?? That they cannot be managers or that they are pikeys or something like that?? Have you seen who is in charge of BA? I suggest you put your topics in self loading frieght, thats where passengers and/or aerosexuals post there ideas.

[leeds 65]

Having had a nightmare experience in that crap hole beauvais almost everytime - i have come to the conclusion that the french have the intelligence of a peanut.

The french + italians = cocky, dangerous,3rd world,2nd rate ATC.constant confusion on the frequency - you can hear it in the controllers voice.changes of runway while your on approach.getting a simple airways clearance is extremely difficult.various different languages -all talking crap,whilst your trying to flare the effin airplane=unsafe.inefficient airlines(alitalia etc) and airport authorities.

Dont get me started,or have i already

Harsh but the majority will agree -FACT

The best thing about flying in france or italy is the bloody airway out of the place,with hopefully no speed restriction

[ZBMAN]

leeds 65,

You are talking out of you bloody arse. Maybe BiZ is right after all, you racist moron. A bit like O'Leary after all.

See you in the 3rd world. Idiot.

[pilot999]

leeds 65

you forgot the most important one.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The snotty little shi-s who the company call fo's that think they are gods gift to everyone, who whinge, moan, critise the wrong doings of the company, Have a massive gob but cannot fly the aeroplane and have no idea what airmanship is,

of course you put every one in the same bucket for every little fallacy, so I guess you fall in the above cat too.

[SD.]

It's not racist, it's true. Germany, UK, Holland, the Nordics, Belgium all manage to control their airspace pretty well. The further south you go, the worse it gets.

[ssschmokin1]

OK everyone, can we get this thread back on subject rather than lowering it to nation hating. The unifying thing about working for Ryanair is that one seems to feel that the hate from above is distributed evenly, regardless of where you come from

UK Viking

I don't know what contract you are on or if you are comparing the same, because I have two friends who are captains at easy and one who is an F/O. Maybe your friends are in Madrid or some other base, non UK, with differrent terms. For UK based easy pilots, the whole treatment and salary is far better than at Ryan. They have a 5/3, 5/4 earlies/lates roster, leave system is transparent, fair and flexible. No joke allocations of leave at thelast minute. It took a while to negotiate, but now they say they will never leave.

Agreed right now, expansion is not fast there, not unusual in many airlines. Ryan is only expanding relatively fast because their costs are lower. Why is that - because they pay us less than the other UK majors pay their pilots.

They absolutely rely on staff turnover so that pilots such as you come and go and are not so aware of what the salary was relative to the other UK companies. My figure of 8,000 GBP is the amount, in todays money, that you are paid LESS than the same RYR captain in 2000 was. The VALUE of your basic (and all the other pay) has got less due to the pay rises over the years never even approaching the rate of inflation. Ie you have been made poorer.

Don't think that you will be there only for a few years and then move - with the pay going down so fast, A LOT of fellow ryan pilots will have the same idea when the market picks up, the competiton for those jobs will be immense, and because ryan will have taken market share due to the crap pay = lower overheads there will be less jobs, and on lower money, to choose from than in the last upswing in the market. It's a race to the bottom, led by ryanair, but we can do something to stop it.

We can get the union. Force the company to negotiate. Remove the reason why we will all be looking for another job!

Happy landings!

[Monarch Man]

This is just why MOL will continue to make you guys look like the fools you appear to be.......
Bickering like school children, and 99% without a backbone in sight.
If you pay for your rating, pay for a uniform, pay for sim checks hotels etc....you deserve all you get..or more accurately don't get.
I particularly like the "im alright jack" posts on here, as well as the view that things will improve when you move to left hand seat...are you serious?
What a joke, RYR are no better than a Bangalore sweatshop, more fool you muppets that work for them and complain.

[Leo Hairy-Camel]

A whiff of gorgonzola.

That's rich, coming from a lackey of the Sicilian mob. Good old Monarch, impervious to the commercial wind as ever. 911, Sars, Gulf Wars 1 and 2, and you didn't skip a beat throughout the whole lot. Just kept marching on, and on, and on, and on, like always. How wonderful for you.

Those of us not blessed by the condom of commercial irrelevance are compelled by different motives. Those in glass palazzi should, at the very least, be careful when throwing stones, Monarch Man.

Ciao!

[Teddy Robinson]

The point is ...

Ryanair is staffed by a mix of motivated professionals who do not care who they work for, and the people who want to be motivated professionals.

Given an open market everyone would be happy : the zero houred f/o's who to fly a shiny jet, the experienced ones who want a command, the captains who want to work for a decent employer, the traveling public just have to make their risk assessment and REAL cost analysis as to who they choose to fly with.

The problem is that given the Boeing based / airframe value increasing model, wannabees flying a shiny jet with low hours and willing to pay for it model, and the : here is your consumer based lets fly to a cheap airport and buy a bargain property model.. look at the collapsing property markets in the UK and Ireland .. look at the collapsing property prices in France and Spain in those " off the beaten track destinations".. that is what Ryanair sold people .. a dream .. and it is turning into reality whether O'Leary tells you that is the case or not

There are of course more permutations as to what has been sold to various people under various guises, the long and short of the matter is that the model is coming apart at the seams.
I travel very regularly, pay the tickets, and the FR boast is bullsh@t .... and I want service and a decently qualified crew to fly with.
There are many others are now spreading the word.. if FR are really cheaper book ... otherwise don't !

A simple comparison on most routes that people fly with wife kids and normal baggage shows that the traveling public has been sold a "partial truth" and if people have invested in either career or property terms they are about to come unstuck .. after all ... who made the promises ? ..

It's not going to be nice watching Ryanair unravel, but in the long term, it will be for the best.

The only sad thing is that like Bush and Blair, we don't get to see MOL in the dock.

[Monarch Man]

Ha ha Hairy toenail.....oh how its nice to live in ignorance.

I no longer work for Spotty M, haven't for the last couple of years

Those of us not blessed by the condom of commercial irrelevance

I must say hairy toenail, I do enjoy your blinkered perception from time to time.

[ZeBedie]

I do work for Monarch and for once I wish The Camel was right - but I'm afraid the condom doesn't exist.

But to get back on the subject - MOL is driving you suckers towards White Van Man T's & C's. I hope you get your act together whilst you've still got a chance. And don't think you'll bail out into a better company because where Ryanair go, the rest of the industry will follow, so either stand and fight, or you're ducked.

[Teddy Robinson]

Ah ... Camel .... Sopwith presumably ?

When we see postings linking to sources relating to Ryanair incidents / near accidents where the captain is quoted as saying " I did not want to tell the management that my son had died because I feared losing my job" .. perhaps we should be asking who the real aviation mafia is.

People like you perhaps ? ... line pilots who tow the management line and drag others down with you.

That incident is indefensible in human and corporate terms and you know it.

My background ? OUR company voted best in EUROPE and throughout Europe ... best in industry (not aviation) 35 years in the building ... and who's first and most important resource were the people who made it that good.

LEO .. go bully .... that's simply the low level you and your like can aspire to.

Du bist Abschaum einfach.

[D O Guerrero]

Contrary to my better judgement I feel I have to say something about the RYR FO bashing that has become a regular feature of this and other threads. I count myself extremely lucky to have a job in the current environment and I never set out to fly a jet as a low hours pilot - any aircraft would have been good enough. But RYR is the only organisation that has given me a chance to fly an aircraft of any type and I'm very grateful to them for that. Yes, its cost me money, but how many airlines in the last 3 years or so have offered jobs to low houred pilots without some kind of financial commitment? Even BA claws some of the costs back through reduced pay for 2 or 3 years. The costs are not as great as people make out - it cost me 18k or so for my type rating after the VAT was refunded. Yes, a lot of money but I made it back fairly quickly. I don't know anyone that has had to make a financial outlay who has found it cheaper - and I know plenty who have paid getting on for twice as much. I did not and do not "pay to fly". I have not set out to ruin everyone's T&Cs. I find the notion that I should NOT have taken a job with RYR to preserve everyone else's cosy little environment quite ludicrous. Do people really believe that this a sensible option for low hours pilots? I have never been of the "job at any price" view, but short of going on the dole, defaulting on my mortgage, becoming homeless and probably offing myself from Clifton Suspension Bridge, I didn't really see many other options at the time.
The people who bash people like me have a pretty curious outlook. I'm not sure if its based on jealousy, because they had to fly crappy little planes around for years, or ignorance. I make no apology for having what I consider to be a great job. I think I've earned it. Whilst I may not be a pilot god like so many of the contributors here, I learn something every day and my handling skills are clearly ok. I am not a "cheap asshole" - I've been well trained and have worked bloody hard to get here. Yes, there are one or two who seem to slip through the net. But does anyone really think this doesn't happen in EVERY airline? If you do, you're on a different planet to the one I'm on. At the end of the day - I don't really see what is different to what I've done, to what BA cadets have been doing for 30 or 40 years. I spoke to a guy the other day who was flying a 707 in his first job after finishing at Oxford. So please... give it a rest will you? The enemy is not the person sitting in the right hand seat...

[eagerbeaver1]

Guerrero,

What exactly is your point?

If you can't afford to fly professionally without needing a 100k loan then you should not do it. Professional aviation has been made accessible to the masses which has subsequently help bring us all to where we are today.

I fly with people who really should not be Pilots, or could not have been had so much cheap money been available.

The new chaps want everything straight away, straight out of school into a jet then it's "I will get my command in three years, get 1000 hours then its off to BA" I hear it all the time.

Until you chaps who shackling yourselves with a mountain of debt, then wonder why someone else takes advantage of you realise that you must stick up for yourself and your colleagues.

[Fightback Fred]

D O Guerrero

Nobody is blaming you for taking advantage of the only system there is, But the system of any tom or dick or leo hocking themseleves to he eyeballs leads to exploitation. Training is a nice little earner

I wrote a similar post to you a good few years back, about how great the job is how grateful I was to have a jet job, there are 100's of former cadets/low houred guys that know exactly how you feel and shared those very sentiments.

Just for the record many cannot get the tax back on type rating and Ryanairs rating is more expensive than a generic 738 rating, you are paying them a few grand back hander for the privalege of your rating and to enter Ryanairland


Mark my words D O Guerrero. That with time your opinion will change, sooner or later they will ruthlessly affect you, your contract, your basing or some part of your terms of employment, they will impose what they like at will and it will not be to your benefit,

Contrary to all the FR propagada 5/4 was given becuase it suited them to stop having pilots running out of hours and the IAA were leaning on them heavily to resolve the former rostering debacle or many doing 900 hours in 9-10 months.

They will only only ever take. Just enjoy the jet and routes and give it time.

Cadets just want to stay low and avoid confrontation, we know, we've been there. But inform yourself D O Guerrero, use that brain of yours that got you this far and make sure you protect yourself and your future.

and when the time comes vote to protect it, or else it will be all downhill from here.

[D O Guerrero]

Eager..
My point? I think you're making it for me. As to yours, I'm not sure what your're getting at really. Did you actually read what I wrote? Yes there are people who want it all now. But for everyone of those there are another 2 who are professional people quietly getting on with building their experience.
And who said I needed a loan? Please stop generalising...
We each have our own circumstances and reasons for working for Ryanair. Personally, it suits me perfectly. If it didn't, I'd leave. I've had more than my fair share of being messed about and treated like rubbish thanks. And thanks for the advice Eager, I'm quite capable of sticking up for myself when it matters.

[eagerbeaver1]

DO G,

Of course I read your post. Your post is sufficiently ambiguous for me to assume you are the same as most brookfield cadets. You talk about money you paid for training and how you cannot pass up the opportunity for a job.

You cannot "stick up for yourself" in Ryanair, it is impossible.

I hope you have signed the petition.