Slim,
Mine was not a thought for the immediate, I have seen my previous employer fill ac all summer yet make :mad: all profit! Right now its a fight to keep trading I understand that, BUT...I still maintain that the trend ( PRE - Recession) of charging :mad: all and as a result HAVING to reduce T&C's, pax service etc etc etc is cr@p for both sides of the industry. It is RIDICULOUS to pay so little to travel to another country as it was RIDICULOUS to pay on average £350 to fly to Paris in the late 70's early 80's.....hence my comment on middle ground as something to be aimed for in the future. Unfortunately, the public EXPECTS to fly for nothing these days, how does that help anyone?? And I AM also the public and have found myself complaining because my return fare to Paris was OMG €50 odd!!!1Risiculous expectations. See my point?

PS and yes all waste savings is ALSO something to aim for in all cases as long as it simply doesnt make the board and shareholders richer whilst further operational costs ( ie salaries ) are further reduced. I am not disagreeing with you, this is not a pro/con BALPA observation just a general view on the industry as a whole, your job, my next job etc etc

I do see your point but the business is segmenting: segmentation by brand has been take to a new level by the locos and their revenue streams have moved from the traditional one ticket buys everything to pay as you go.

Conversely, while the airlines have been adopting, more and more, the pay as you go method, hotels /resorts have been turning more and more to the all inclusive concept.

Perhaps it is because a flight is becoming less of a discretionary purchase than a 2 week holiday and the consumer sees it as a necessary evil to get from A to B rather than as an integral part of their holiday.

Competition also lowers prices: if you compare like for like stage lengths where there is / are multiple carriers with monopolies you will find the a vast variation in pricing.

In due course Ryanair will evolve, as will BA, Virgin and every other carrier: the process is dynamic, driven by incremental small changes introduced somewhere and adopted by many.

Whether we are still working, or long retired by the time the change takes effect is a moot point.

Mmmm well I hope by the time if find re-employment I'll be getting more than min wage!!!!!!! :ok:
I guess you are right,eventually a level playing field will have to be reached but neither extremes are sustainable long term......once the industry starts to climb out of this recession, am still pro-union, NOT to argue every pithy little point but in order for some balance to be restored across the board! If not BALPA why not another?

Whether it is ridiculous to pay £350 to travel to Paris or not, it is probably a truer reflection of the costs involved of running a long term regular and profitable service. It isn't that people expect to be able to do this for nothing, indeed they realize that being shuttled about in £50 million capital assets isn't likely to be cheap. They really want to be able to travel in sumptuous comfort, being plied with grapes and champagne, and be whisked through to their destination with speed and good grace. The problem is most of them can't afford the true cost of that. The compromise means that the various levels of discomfort and hassle they face, generally justifies the search for a bargain price.

The advent of the pile em high sell em cheap airlines (or supermarkets, car warehouses, etc.) requires that in order to suceed both of the conditions have to be satisfied. That requires very high yield to even hope to achieve any sort of acceptable margin or indeed any profit. The £350 fares probably satisfied the cost base at 50% load factors or less. The bargain basement fares most certainly won't. When that yield starts to fall away, because the novelty wears off, spending priorities change, or more competition comes to town, you are faced with 3 choices: 1) Raise the fares and hope the fickle customers dont run across the street to the competition; 2) cut the operating costs to the bone; 3) Slash your own fares to increase yield even though that yield will still lose you money, and hope that the competition bleeds to death before you do.

As long as there is competition, these will always be the cyclical realities of this market segment. If you want comfort and champagne, take the train from London to Paris, it is quicker, nicer, more convenient, and for all the best advantages will still cost you £350!

Indeed Bealzebub
is what I have alway called "the race to the bottom". Unfortunatley is its a reality, and as you say I am sure if pax could afford it, they would prefer to travel under slightly better conditions, but I expect long term the CORRECT ratio of fares to running cost will come about, without excluding too large a % of the public and at the same time redeeming the industry a little for the better.

Now all the back biting and bickering is out of the way, it's good to see some constructive discussion concerning the industry.

:ok:

Sorry
 

Captplay!
I should have read your posts better before responding. I bow for thee...
I am one of the lucky ones in RYR who you do not find so often on PPRUNE. Base I want, My family every night, my own bed and so on. My life is great:)
I hope that all you pilots who are not so lucky will try to do something about it in a positive way. Change base, try living outside the UK (believe me, food is better). Look for oportunities instead of problems. Porto, Trapani, Bologna, Alghero and so on.
Tomorrow I will fly one of these new shiny birds again and come home to my family in the evening. Life is great.
/Teddy

teddyman,

maybe tomorrow I will fly from a base which is not really what I call home, I will fly with someone who is on a different contract and will be discussing why he or I do the same job in the same base for less money,maybe I will be flying my 5th day and looking forward to the next 3 dats off 'cause I'm in a 5/3 base,maybe I will be on annual leave that I haven't chosen (impossible from next year in july/august when I will be working while the kids & wife are on holiday) or on my unpaid month off,maybe I will be sick at home without pay nor medical care (unless I have arranged my own), maybe I will be travelling to EMT or STN for my sim paying for transport&hotel, maybe I will be signing a cheque for my own loss of licence or pension scheme, maybe I will be working on a day off without any extra money, maybe I will paying for my wife's ticket so she can come visit me because we have no discounted tickets for family (brk),maybe I will be calling OPS or maintenance at my own expense from abroad to discuss operational issues, maybe I will be reporting 20/30 minutes before the official reporting time just to be sure I can get a printer that works and be ready on time, maybe I will be paying for my airport carpark and ID, maybe I will be on my 7th or 8th STBY day of the month, maybe I will have been waiting for my base of choice for a couple of years with no luck, maybe I will have to live in one of those beautiful new bases alone because there is no international school for the kids in a radius of 500nm, maybe I will get sent out of base and will have to travel on my days off at my own expense.....and so on teddyman.

Don't want to sound pessimistic but just want you to realize that just because you are one of the few "happy at home" ones it doesn't mean that the other 2999 are smiling like you are (there are around 3000 of us right?).
There are surely good things about this company but there also are bad ones, and making it a better place to work should be an aim for all of us.

P.S.: I will also fly one of those shiny jets tomorrow and will be thinking how to make a good life even better because the one we have is far from great....at least for most of us.

WOW!
Powerful stuff.
Danny, I`d say that came straight from the heart!

These last two posts seem to go right to the crux of the matter.

Brakes are cheaper than fuel (So I was told) - hammer the brakes.

Teddyman - I am one of the lucky ones too, however I feel compelled to try and help my less fortunate colleagues. I will remove you from the list seeing as you are ok.

Danny - A terrible truth that affects so many chaps here.

teddyman & danny,

As has been said, you are both completely correct, which is the problem we face.
How to make someone anti-Ryanair when he feels well with his lot ? well, we can't & indeed shouldn't.
What we should do as a group is try to understand why the other guys feels so hard done by , & ,AS A GROUP, try to have the imagination to see that one day, our happy little base/ situation may well end (as it has for many ) & that WE TOO are about to (involuntarily ) find ourselves in the discontented camp instead.
Everyone should have the imagination to see this, or they could one day find themselves in for a very big shock :eek: