8 Reasons to be a Ryanair pilot
 

http://www.ryanair.com/careers/pilot...737_apply.html

Lies from the Ryanair website. What new pilots are promissed is not exactly what they get in the real life when being hired via an agency, a low salary paid by the block hour, no pension, no share options, no loss of license cover, no hotels, no transportation. The only thing that is slightly true is the fixed 5:3 pattern mentioned BUT they forgot to mention that the homebase can be shifted each time a new 5 day peiod begins! They also forgot to mention that the contracter will pay his own LPC and uniform, and hotels/transportation when out of homebase.

No wonder why they are so cheap. Cant really figure out why something like this is possible in 2004! I can imagine why a company will do anything to get prices down, but I cant imagine why employees in herds of hundreds, thousands accept these bad working conditions. THEY are actually the reason why its possible. They deliver a good product - even while being treated like slaves - and they accept it. Gee I wonder

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8 Reasons to be a Ryanair pilot


Outstanding Earnings Potential
Our remuneration package includes a basic salary and sector pay. Captains joining Ryanair in the UK, for instance, can earn up to Stg£88,700 in the first year, rising to Stg.£102,140. A senior first officer with 3 years' service can earn up to Stg.£70,620.

LIE: 65 E - 5 for uniform+LPC = 60 EUR per block HR x 900 HRS = Max. 45.000 EUR = 30.768 GBP


Fixed Roster Pattern
Our roster pattern lets you plan with certainty. 5 on, 3 off. Fixed Days Off. No scheduled overnights, circumstances permitting.

LIE: Fixed roster is right, but base shifting around all over Europe


Unrivalled Career Progression
Potential for command within 3 years.

I like the word "potential"


Pension Plan
Company matches first 5% contribution from basic salary.

LIE: Does not exist for many existing and all new pilots

Loss of Licence Cover Available
€190,000

LIE: The cover has been cancelled for all pilots


5 Year Agreement
5 Year Agreement on pay, benefits and share options

Yeah, and WHAT a lousy agreement...


Share Option Scheme
Our share option scheme has seen returns of €230,000 in 5 years for existing pilots

LIE: The scheme does not exist for new pilots, and is worthless for existing pilots, as it is of now


And more...
Excellent Flight Benefits

True: And Ryanair is talking about cancelling this benefit

Unfortunately, is an indication of the state of the aviation industry worldwide.

The employees take it because they are desperate.

Yes, but even the five year agreement you mention is not a "real" five year agreement. It has been modified twice without agreement or discussion (unless telling the ERC in a couple of bases = negotiations). Those modifications were, in anyone's language, significant (in the downwards direction).

Standard Ryanair creativity when it comes to figures and their misrepresentation!

A colleague of mine recently went to STN for an interview with RYR. She is a fairly low houred pilot who payed for her own B737 type rating. After managing to secure temporary employment for the summer her contract is due to end, hence the search for continuation of employment and a chance to up her B737 jet experience.

She told me that RYR are offering 55 Euros a block hour. That's it! Base can be requested but is not guaranteed and can be re-allocated at short notice. If time away from base is required for duty then an extra 20 Euros are given. Accommodation has to be arranged by the individual but RYR do give a list of approved accommodation that should be able to help.

Had this colleague been on a permanent contract with her current employer flying IT flights to the usual European holiday destinations, her basic salary would have been over £36,000 a year plus £2.20 per hour duty pay and all the associated 'extras' such as free uniform, medicals paid for, licence renewals paid for, loss of licence insurance, death in service benefit, crew meals, free water, tea and coffee, etc. She would have flown busy summers and reasonably quiet winters for an average total of around 700 block hours a year and been paid for 28 days leave too (leave usually given in blocks of 5 days with weekends attached at either end).

In my estimation, considering that 700 hours a year is tiring enough considering the mix of earlies, lates and nights, never mind the extra workload of double the number of shorter sectors and the regime of working to maximum legal flight hours of 900 in a year, 55 Euros a block hour all in does seem a bit pathetic.

By my calculation, assuming that my colleague flies the maximum permissible hours in a year, she will only earn 49,500 Euros a year before tax and other necessary expenses such as uniform, medicals, hotac and transport for sims, insurance etc. That equates to £33,700 before tax and extras at todays exchange rate. That represents the MAXIMUM earning potential.

No doubt my colleague will take the opportunity to build her jet experience but there is no way she would look at RYR as a good career move except as a stepping stone to something more prosperous once she has gained enough experience. Definitely a step forward as far as she is concerned for hour and experience building but two steps back as far as she is concerned in trying to overcome the expense of her licence and type rating.

point of view
 

in response to one of the previous replies,i just wanna make sure that i am not the only one that realises this,but the only reason "people" like mol treat pilots with such disrespect is because we let them.tiocfaidh ar la michael....and on one other thing.how much is the iaa getting to keep those c of a s valid?that cant be all that safe.

I must be missing something here.

Agency nurses dont get the same terms as regular nurses working at the same hospital.

cwatters-

You are really missing something . One year ago the agency nurse had 134 Euro per hour( I know they don't like paying taxes as all of us ) . The average agency nurse had may be 1000 h on NG and I had more that 4000 .. Was it fair . I don't think so .


For majority of pilots in RYR it took many years to come to there they are now . That includes years of instructing almost for free , flying different types of aircraft et c .

Quote: "She is a low houred pilot who payed for her own type-rating......" and is therein lies part of the problem perhaps. Reap and ye shall sow and all that!

If people stopped paying for jobs just to get to fly a shiny (or not so shiny) jet, maybe it would help stop the not so gradual erosion of our profession. Unfortunately, where Ruinair tread, others follow and we seem to be on a steady decline to who knows where.

There is strength in numbers and until people get together and say 'enough is enough' the beancounters and pencil necks will continue to run rings around us.

But how to stick together, what to do.
Suggestions ??

...well, if there are 600 pilots in Ruinair right now, there is 600 reasons why conditions are so bad.

Suggestions....

Every pilot in Ryanair should join Balpa/Ialpa and request them to take control of the situation. Give these unions full authority to lead the case against Ryanair. Use their legal support, and req. to have a Ryanair Pilot Union website set up.

1. Set up a website with member login and a voting capability
2. Mandatory registration of all pilots (use the masterschedule)
3. Announce a vote online, advice people via email or SMS
4. Take votes online, until a collective working conditions draft is ready, and send this to MOL.

When MOL sees the draft and rejects it while calling you Taliban warriors or something like that,

5. Take a vote about when ALL pilots stand down.
6. And do NOT fly until the draft has been accepted.

If the crews at Ryanair can not do this, they are :mad:.

Your suggestions are well meant, really!. But how do you get the contract pilots and the direct employed pilots under one umbrella that 600 stick together? Ruinair..... not a bad one:p

NG

contract and direct hire pilots
 

request these pilots to conform and if not impose an ifalpa employment ban!they don't play fair,why should we.

SpectreLover

First of all the infor on the web is about permanent positions in the company.

LIE: 65 E - 5 for uniform+LPC = 60 EUR per block HR x 900 HRS = Max. 45.000 EUR = 30.768 GBP

that for contract f/o

60EUR per block hr rostered not an actual flying block so it will be around 1000 hr per year

60x1000=60000 / 1.5 = 40000GBP and that for F/O for assigned base

I agree it is before tax but that not so bad at the end of the day.

Permanent f/o with type rating get around 54000GBP before tax = 3200-3400 per month after tax

Tell us if you know better place to go with better conditions

Honey737....Keep dreaming. You have your rosy glasses installed, an thus you are part of the problem. Not many will get a firm contract, why should they? ...they are much cheaper via an agency. You dont fly 1000 hours a year, some do, some dont, its not to be counted upon. And if you fly this much, where is your holidays? (Like normal employees have, in normal companies). If they need you, you will be scheduled to fly. If not, you will not. They dont need to fire you, they can just stop scheduling you. I think my 900 hrs / year example is more than realistic.
And DO NOT FORGET TO CALCULATE THE COST OF HOTELROOMS AND TRANSPORTATION IN ROME; MILAN, HAHN, BARCELONA, LONDON, STOCKHOLM DURING A WHOLE YEAR AND DEDUCT IT FROM YOU IMAGINARY 40000 GBP WHEN YOU STATE SALARIES!!!
...and remember: Holidays, pension schemes, LOL insurance and other things COST MONEY, so a Ryanair job can not be compared to other jobs when just using the figure for salary. Other companies have these things. Try and think twice before you write like that again.

Honey,

Nice calculation now just add the following data:
-As a contract FO it is not certain you make 900 hours...
-You can be moved base on the double
-You will be asked to do stand by's at a base (thus travelling and using Hotac) and not fly!!! So the company is using your services and make you spend money but there is no guarantee that you can earn money....

At the end of the day the amount you can put in your pocket after paying your health insurance, pension, pay of your TQ loan, travel cost, accomodation etc is not sfficient to pay for a ticket on RYR ..... :oh:

yeah, its probably true what they say, that if you get on a Ryanair flight as a passenger, the crew that you meet might be paying more than you do to fly. This airline sucks so much its unbelievable. The (very few) people that can see the bright side and are maybe even defending it are just ignorants, but the (a lot more) people that accepts the conditions and do not dare to speak up or unite themselves are the problem itself! I really hope for the sake of airsafety and working conditions that the people in Ruinair say NO pretty soon.

I didn't say it was fair.

My point is that if you are employed by company A you can't expect the Terms and Conditions to be exactly the same as if you were employed by Company B - even if you both do the same work for company C.

Do you expect all plumbers to quote the same when they fix your pipes?

cwatters - you are lost

I'm curious. How can anyone be put on duty = SBY, and not be paid. An employee is paid a salary, thus SBY's are covered. A contract pilot is paid only if they fly. If they are rostered for SBY and not paid, yet incur expenses to be at a nominal base, why do it? Why should anyone be on duty for no pay. Seems daft, and perhaps illegal, to me! Is this another example of pilots letting themselves be rolled-over. Time to stand up, me thinks.

P.S. Is there not an EU move afoot to equalise the T's & C's for fulltime and part-time/contract workers?

RAT 5 you do it by not paying a basic salary, by employing your employee via an intermediate company (offshore if necessary), paying only by the sector and working on the basis that eventually the total payments can be claimed to exceed the legal annual minimum. Of course, this example does not apply to everyone. It applys to some permanently (increasingly the case for cabin crew) and for others it only applies for a limited period. Some people (the majority?) only discover such "rules" or "practices" AFTER they join. Which is why this forum is good for alerting people as to the questions they should ask before they commit themselves to Ryanair.