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.

Delwy.

I'm not sure I understand that, completely, but it still doesn't answer the question of why anyone should accept being put on duty, incurring expencses, and not being paid.

It would seem well within anyone's rights to refuse.

The only reason to join Ryanair has to be because you can get nothing else
It has become a dreadful company over the last 6 months

ALSO BEWARE THE BROOKFIELD CONTRACT WHICH CHARGES YOU
APPROX 5 EUROS PER BLOCK HOUR TO PAY FOR YOUR SIM CHECKS CLEARLY THIS EQUATES TO APROX 4500 EU PER YEAR
RUMOUR HAS IT THAT ALL OF THE PERMANENT PILOTS WILL BE SIMILARLY STITCHED UP FROM APRIL 05

SpectreLover that is you ....Keep dreaming. It is you have your rosy glasses installed, and that is you problem.
As I said before that infor on the web for the direct permanent contract. And your are trying to use data for cotractors through the agency.
COLOR=red]Not many will get a firm contract, why should they?[/COLOR] ...they are much cheaper via an agency.

They are not much cheaper. The main difference is they have to pay for their sim and for the loss of licence insurance. But bearing in mind most of the contract lads do not pay tax that means they save quite a lot.

" You dont fly 1000 hours a year, some do, some dont, its not to be counted upon. "

Yes you don't fly 1000 block hours a year ( but very close to) and the money you earn will depend on how much do you fly both for permanent and contractors. Permanent lads have basic and serctor pay.

"And if you fly this much, where is your holidays? (Like normal employees have, in normal companies)."

That is basic math 100hxmonth you will have at least two month off more likely three.

"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 that depends on your contract. I am sure you read before you sing.

"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!!!"

Ok let's take you 900X60=54000/1.5=36000GBP and for the cost of the hotels, transportation you get another 20eur per block hour. So say you get half half 450x20=9000/1.5=6000GBP total off 42000GBP before tax for the f/o.

"...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."

You are not comparing as far as I noticed. You are just presenting the facts that are not complete.

" Try and think twice before you write ***** like that again."

And I see somebody have corected your post. I am sure you know what i'm talking about. So wach your mouth before you write.

trainer too 2

contract pilots don't do the stb days unless they are on assignment base which they choose.

Honey, no one corrected my post. I put the *s myself because I anticipated an automatic correction. I am not being paranoid, like you - defending the worst airline in the industry to work for.

...and yeah, you can really get a lot of accomodation, taxies and expensive living and travel for those 20E/hr extra.....NOT. Please remember that most IRS administrations in the EU consider these 20E/hr as pay, hence will charge you tax of those.

In most countries its not considered legal to add to the salary so that the employee can pay for the companys hotelrooms, transportation, expenses etc. on outbase. In this case the employee shall be given a company creditcard.

If it is added to the salary the emplyee might face a serious tax problem, but ofcourse - this airline doesnt give a **** about that.

SpectreLover

wHICH AIRLINE ARE YOU WORKING FOR THEN?

AND I am not defending. I am giving you just the facts.

Honey, this discussion is about Ryanair. Who ******* cares who you or I work for? But I tell you one thing, and that is that a decent employer offers a salary, a pension scheme, a LOL scheme and will provide you with a life through a fixed base / schedule. Futhermore, the employees will have the same working collective agreement so that no one is taken advantage of. I would never go work for an airline that pays absolutely nothing other than 60E a block hour and makes you spend your freetime positioning and looking for hotacs all over Europe. And remember, this is only NOW Honey, maybe 2-3 years from now a Ryanair pilot will be getting 30E an hour, because the Baltic and Eastern pilots will be knocking on the door, and MOL will be doing rally's in Slovakia, Czech Rep., Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. This is a multinational company that will take advantage of this. They will pay an eastern European guy 30E to fly from London if they can. They dont care if he lives with 10 other guys in a mobile home just outside the fence in Stansted. But as long as pilots are selfish and paranoid, thinks that flying is equal to having fun, and think their salary is made out of flight hours and not Euros, the conditions will always be worse than most jobs.

RAT5, in short you find that you can indeed refuse, but that suddently you have very little work to do and that others are called in preference. As a well known middle management figure at STN has said, "we can sort out the problem contractors by not telephoning them". This technique has become an art form with the cabin crew. It quickly brings those with debts to heel, especially when colleagues explain exactly what is going on.

7 Years ago when I first entered this industry I was very lucky to gain employment with a "traditional" airline with a "traditional" contract which has remained largely unchanged. However, at the time I would have taken a job with almost anyone, Ryanair included. Paying for my own type rating was never an option because I had run out of money but if I did have the money I would have considered it.

Things change after a few years. I am still employed by the same airline and am happy - why? Because I am paid well and treated fairly. I will remain with them for as long as this continues. If my airline had gone down the Ryanair road of F*You management I would have been long, long gone by now. This brings me to my next point.

It is obvious that Ryanair is exploiting the bottom end of the pilot market with this contract-style employment. This will not, and cannot, last. People will never stay for long under such conditions. They will have no sense of loyalty and therefore won't care if the airline survives or not. This type of attitude can, and will sink an airline. Attrition rates will increase which will sap the airline of any decent level of experience. OK their training costs are minimal because they will not accept their responsibility for properly and fully training their workforce, but lack of experience will quickly equate to serious schedule instability and complete inability to expand (which this type of business model relies on) and eventually incidents & accidents. This will be noticed by the media and the public and the airline will fail.

MOL has failed to take this into account and he will pay for it in the relatively near future. He has seriously miscalculated with his anti-union rhetoric and does not realise that if he would simply treat his staff fairly and pay them responsibly then they wouldn't join the union. But that is by the by. In the meantime, however, other more responsible employers have to compete with this terrible airline and therefore there is downward pressure on T&Cs for all pilots in the industry. This will all end in tears because as I mentioned above, seven years ago I would have put up with it for a while. But not now - I would leave the industry entirely if I had to work for anything like what Ryanair pilots had to put up with. I love my job but there are other jobs out there and I will not prostitute myself in this way. I am not alone, I cannot think of anyone in my airline who would do any different. Over time many pilots have left to go elsewhere in the UK or worldwide but to my knowledge, no one has ever left my company to join Ryanair (at least in the last decade anyway), which says a lot.

Everything is cyclical and by the time T&Cs start improving again (because of simply supply and demand problems) there will be a serious lack of experience in the industry because so many will have left. All thanks to Ryanair.

Zippy

[QUOTE]MOL has failed to take this into account and he will pay for it in the relatively near future. He has seriously miscalculated with his anti-union rhetoric and does not realise that if he would simply treat his staff fairly and pay them responsibly then they wouldn't join the union. But that is by the by.

I agree for 100% with that. And when I joined Ryanair 4 years ago conditions were different at least 95 % of pilots were happy. Now it is all the way around.

Zippy2004

And as you have said you wre lucky. But the lads who have finished their flying schools and were dreaming to fly they are ready to pay. There are a lot of pilots who are ready to pay for the type because they want to get jet experience and then to apply for proper airline.

All major airlines 3-5 years ago had the cadet programmes so the boys and girls from the school had the chance. Now situation is different that why MOL is using this. I am sure Ryanair could be much much better and people could stay for long but that is not the case now. It makes me sad.

But as everybody else now I decided to get as much as i can and leave unless there will be a dramatic change to the better conditions which I doubt.

Will wait and see what is going to happen when big airlines start to recruit.

Another signicant part of the equation for contractors who are UK Tax Residents is National Insurance, it appears to me that under the legislation which came into force in 2000 it might be quite difficult to prove self employed status and my Financial Advisor
agrees this means at least 20% of salary goes in NI. approx 10% for the EMPLOYERS contribution and the same again as the EMPLOYEE

I mentioned this to Brookfield who became very evasive!

I would be very interested to know whether anyone is successfully claiming self employed status on these contracts

I did it pre 2000 and might have to do it again(God Forbid):
:confused: ::{ :hmm:

the market
 

zippy2004,not getting on your case but i am interested to know what the bottom end of the market is,is it guys who are not employable elsewhere.just interested.

and now if you want to apply you have to go through of sim check. charged 200 pounds!

They only have been doing the last 10 years or so.... :rolleyes:

8 reasons to be a Ryanair pilot
 

Flying headbutt - You are soooo right on! I've collected 8 different uniforms, so far during my ride and it's not over yet. But I have steadfastly refused and never had to pay for my training, type rating or a bond.

Now there are nine reasons to join Ryanair.

9th = you can join REPA - the Ryanair European Pilots Association!

Hopefully this will lead to an exchange of stories about all the different ways we are all exploited by Ryanair!

I have read SO MANY NEGATIVE rumours about Ryanair that if you were to believe them you'd come to the conclusion that it's a terrible airline to work for.

I disagree totally. I worked for them for over a year and left because a job come up closer to where my family and I wanted to live. Ryan Air was great to work for:

1.The roster was stable and requesting days leave when you wanted was never a problem.

2. The money was excellent, as a SFO I took home on average £3,600 pounds (after tax) per month.

3. The planes were always on time.

4. The colleagues I flew with were from 35 different countries and ALL very professional and very easy to get on with.

5. Excellent maintenance and well maintained aircraft.

I read about getting union representation and I reckon it's a VERY bad idea. I have worked and am currently working for an airline with union representation and I find it a total mess. Ryan Air pilots, like Southwest Airlines pilots are intelligent enough to sit down with company management and work out a deal. They don't need to rely on some HIGH paid union guy to do the talking and negotiating for them at the cost of 1% your annual salary.

Now I agree that flying 4 sectors a day in a fast operation like Ryan Air can be tiring and stressful, but it's great experience for 2 to 3 years before moving onto something a bit more relaxing.

Having worked for other low cost outfits I rank Ryan Air as number one and I would advice any young man/lady starting out in flying that a 2 to 3 year at Ryan Air would do them a world of good. Go for it and don't listen to the negative talk.

I always find that a good way to find out if an airline will suit you is to talk to those that fly the line. Look at the roster pattern, leave system and money in pocket at the end of the month.

May the Force be with you,

Obi Wan Kirk

Thanks for the above MOL - next!:)

Obe Wan. You strike me as being like one of those Japanese POWs who emerged from the jungle several decades after the end of WWII, to announce that things used to be different (and soooo much better than now).

Whatever the base you were in, whatever the salary you earned, the fact that you only flew 4 sector days, etc. etc. does not change the realities reported here and elsewhere. You might have missed these problems, but most of us don't.

Your post is interesting in one way. It is just the kind of testimonial needed by an organisation that is having increasingly problems with its credability in the market place. While it is trying to trap as many cadets as possible into indentured labour, recruitment problems are looming. The fact that pilot turnover and negative image problems increasingly manifest themselves adds to Ryanair's difficulties.

Why don't you come back and join us? I'm sure they'll give you a bonus for the good P.R. before asking you to sign a contract that will be a bit different from the one you report above!

P.S. Southwest pilots are highly unionised and well paid. Ryanair pilots are facing a range of reductions on many fronts, including pay. There are NO negotiations.