For the record, it's not the argument I'm making; merely illustrating how the "NPA = better trained" argument can be extrapolated.

journeyman
 

Any airline that trains 300-400 cadets per year and has an excellent safety record like Ryanair must have a very good training department IMHO.

Easyjet are in that same bracket. The training is of a very high standard there as well IMHO.

Both airlines bashing out 4 sector shifts day in day out with low experience levels in the right hand seat and sometimes in the left and in the majority without incident, doesn't happen by luck that's for certain.

GA flap 15.....

In my view, you do not understand what is happening. I realize that there is this view disseminated by Ryanair that their training is good and that they have a good safety record. I don't dispute that they have, fortunately, not had any significant accident.

The problem is the direction of movement of standards. Even easyjet appear to recognise that they need to integrate more experienced Pilots with less experienced. It seems that Ryanair and the IAA are happy to move into new territory where the majority of Pilots are very inexperienced. In addition to that the standards are not what they were 10+ years ago, when there was a significant failure rate during the initial Instrument rating, and flight test phase of commercial pilot training. That is no longer the case we have moved towards he American system from this point of view where it is just "pay and pass".

Any reasonable person would understand that as you become more experienced and have had a chance to recognize your fallibilities you become a safer pilot. It is therefore clear that pushing the boundaries of less experience is a very dangerous move.

If you add to that the fact that Ryanair use "dirty tricks" to prevent the Pilots from becoming unionized, something that the majority want to do and is a legal right in all countries where Ryanair have Pilots based, you further reduce safety. Unions are involved in much more than negotiating pay, they are involved in all sorts of safety matters from the effects of volcanic ash on engines to solar radiation and it's effect on crew, many many other things in between.

I don't believe that as a Pilot you should be defending this kind of operation, especially when it comes to an Airline which is very profitable and that consists of what will maybe be 400+ aircraft in a few years.

This thread has gone so far off topic it is ridiculous! Has anyone anymore information regarding the amount of pilots coming and going from Ryanair to try bring this once extremely informative and interesting thread back on topic!! Thanks Guys

Ryanair probably does have a good training department purely because it doesn't cost the company money. The poor sods "employed" by FR are paying for the pleasure of training there. If it actually cost FR money to train pilots and they were not making a profit on it I think you'd see a bit more scrimping and saving in the training department.

Journey Man, I can tell you that I have experience of both a very big airline's training department and Ryanair's. Ryanair's is VASTLY superior in almost every regard.

Journey man I'll quantify it for you.
 

In part because it cost FR nothing to train it's pilots there is no commercial pressure in training terms, money talks, Ryanair are one of very few people taking 200 hour people and their parents €30k and they can and do pick and choose ( Ryanair that is!!!)

The majority are very clued up and see Ryanair for what it is warts and all, their objective is get well trained, get a 1000+ hours and get out! it's really that simple and to date that has suited Ryanair as well, their SOP discipline is very very strict and needs to be to stay safe.

I regularly fly with ex FR pilots and yes there are stories, but I can't substantiate them so I won't repeat them, are they better than the average, the answer is yes and I can say that objectively, the lemons don't make the cut at FR it's that simple/brutal know pilots in Jet2, Mon, Norwegian,BA,easyJet, Eastern who have needed a lot of extra training to scrape through line checks.

The one failing that some ex FR pilots have is they believe in their own propaganda , they think they are the dogs :mad:,a lot of that is not surprising when you get command at 24 years old

Every airline has it's there by the grace of God cock ups and FR is no different, but given the sectors flown and the type of approaches involved I'd wager it's less, just have a look at Aviation herald website to see the daily number of cock ups.

As for GA pilots being better because they make more NPA your having a laugh, they are not doing it in a 60t airliner down to minima with approach speeds of 145knts in foul weather

I'm not singing FR as a company, I think they are crap to fly with and work for, but their safety is top notch, it's a credit to both the pilots and the training department :D

LNIDA,

I guess someone was going to get the wrong end of the stick, and that person is you.

If you can find where that's said, I'll post you £10. Finally, quantify does not mean what you obviously think it does. :D

To try and put some perspective on the matter I'll look back over a long career with almost 10 airlines of various hue and creed in a variety of countries. Once upon a time the 'airlines' that flew big noisy jets (outside BA in the 70's) wanted experienced pilots to join their ranks. They were anticipating expansion and wanted suitable new blood. Also the very basic type of a/c we flew, in a very basic ATC environment (other than ATH Greece had little or no radar, and its islands had an ILS/NDB/DME if you were lucky, but not on all runways) required good solid airmanship from the 2 man crew. This was not a suitable environment to train cadets, you needed to have a good aviation grounding beforehand. The training was, 1st, how to fly the a/c; 2nd how to do it according to simple SOP's that were based on FCTM; 3rd how to operate the a/c in a variety of roles and environments. After 7 years or so, and >5000hrs with good prof checks on record you could expect assessment for any command vacancies.
Nowadays the a/c are sophisticated, reliable, include a wealth of navigation information and have excellent autopilots with a wealth of capabilities. Likewise ATC has improved where non-radar is the exception, as is an NPA. There are ILS's all over the place with helpful radar to hold your hand to find them. If not then the FMC will do it for you and tell if you are hot & high or low & slow, and if you are anywhere near where you are supposed to be. As a result the daily routes can be flown by guys who have read and digested the FCTM & SOP manuals and can be trusted to follow them to the letter. This is on a good ideal day, which 95% of them are. A SID is a SID and a STAR is a STAR and an ILS is an ILS and they are joined together by airways loaded into an FMC. Even NPA's can be flown in VNAVPTH or RNAV GNSS just like an ILS. No sweat. The 'flying' part has been reduced to the first 400-1000' after liftoff and the last 500-200' to touchdown. Just follow the SOP's and you can start at A, operate the a/c as per flight plan and arrive in the slot at B. 95% of the time. The odd non-radar airfield, or circle to land is an adventurous day out, and they even have SOP's for those to fly them on the autopliot. Thus a short-haul jet (perhaps even more so the big jets) have become an airborne playstation. Read the instructions and a cadet pilot with CPL can do it. This was not the case in 70's & 80's, but it is now: or so it would seem.
Amazingly some still seem to get it wrong, but that's not the fault of the cadet system. There will be a captain (experienced) who either gets it wrong or allows it to develop into wrong. The cadet can always be over-ruled. The difference I saw amongst cadets was attitude. Some were very sharp and remained so, some were a little blunt and never really cut it. Some were average, competent, but became bored and complacent. They then became blunt but did not realise it. They you had to watch out for.
To summarise: the handling skills are less important now than they used to be with more emphasis on operating skills and following SOP's to save your soul. (Not that I wish it to be so) but still the vital ingredient is attitude. That is where I've seen the selection process at entry level become suspect. The idea that good training = an extensive SOP rule book and a good pilot = one who follows it to the letter can be a workable model, but only if the correct professional, focused, interested attitude is there and maintained. I found some of the average guys taking it for granted that after 3-4 years they would be a captain and earning the big bucks before 30. Their focus was in the wrong place and when time came they were still only average and struggling. Some woke up and scraped through, but should they have been in the industry in the first place?
So, if RYR, ez, or any other of the new boys on the block are considered to have a solid training regime suitable for the modern world and large modern airliners e.g. B777, A340/380 then why not poach them. With the correct attitude they could be very valuable. Would I employ them to fly IFR/VFR around the islands & highlands; I doubt it. But as we saw in the Qantas A380 engine blow out scenario some of the old airmanship methods are necessary, occasionally.

Interesting post Rat 5.

Thank you Rat 5. It was an excellent Post. I m interested to know which side of the debate you fall though. It does seem as though we are moving into new territory for Ryanair as their rate of attrition is increasing and as new aircraft arrive, they want to replace and add Pilots who really have no experience and to an extent never seen before. As I am sure you are aware it is my view that these levels are not safe, even with the quality of equipment that you are talking about and operating in the all radar environment of Europe.

Dr Jones, what type of aircraft do you fly?

What's always confused me, as a pilot and not a business-man, is why, if what I hear is true, RYR and perhaps others shy away from experienced F/O's. Airlines go bust, sometimes they wilt from the competition pressure of the of the LoCo's. It is almost as if there is a law of the jungle out there and the expansion of the strongest is accelerated by the demise of their prey. In a dod eat dog capitalistic environment that seems to be the rule. But why then do the expanding airlines not absorb those whom they have put to the sword? They are expanding and need new commanders. They expand and promote from within, faster then their own F/O's can gain the experience. Yet out there in the market place are the experienced pilots who were in the wrong place at the wrong time waiting to offer their services. Rejected in preference to a 150hr cadet. It is said the LoCo's make a profit from them. Perhaps so, but what is the cost, risk & time spent on getting them onto the line and up to speed as safe pilots? An experienced type rated F/O can be released on line with 4-6 weeks max. A cadet from start of TQ training will take over 6 months. Where is the common sense in that. If an accountant can show the cadet scheme makes more financial sense them I presume the board will buy it, but is it really true? It does seem a daft model where experience is a penalty, especially when we see some of the accidents being executed very month. Is it only me, or are we reading more often about prangs than 10 years ago? Every month there seem to be stories of someone somewhere in the world making a perfectly serviceable a/c not land at the desired point.

Polax 52 - I fly Citation Excel.


I'm not doubting flying an airline in poor weather conditions can not be tricky, but on the flip side going to an airport you have never been too before and doing an NDB approach down to Mins at night can be just as challenging.

Journey man
 

I'll try and keep it very simple for you: I fly around 3 times a week with ex Ryanair pilots, occasionally i also fly with pilots who have come from a variety of other airlines, all were type rated on the 737 prior to joining my airline.

So my comments about their skill level is based on personal experience objectively, they are well trained and their SOP compliance & CRM skills are of an high order, it is significant that we now sim check First officers from all other airlines other than Ryanair, my airlines has quantified that the training risk from pilots from Ryanair is so low that it does not justify the time and cost of a sim check pre offer of employment, conversely our experience with F/o's from other airlines is the opposite.

If i misunderstand the point you are making I apologise, you seem to me? to be saying that there is no evidence that Ryanair pilots receive better training than other airlines, a simple yard stick is the minimum number of sectors a pilot is required to complete before being released for final line check and released to line if the check is passed.

Ryanair min 80 sectors
Norwegian 40
Monarch 10
Jet2 20

In Ryanair these are pilots that are in general without any previous airline experience, In Norwegian these are for pilots previously type rated on either the CL/NG (including ex Ryanair pilots) Norwegian MPL student will do at least 100 sectors, In Monarch this target (rarely met) is for all pilots previously rated or not, Jet2 in general is more threshold based i understand?



So for my simple mind please quantify the point your are making? more importantly on what facts/personal experience are you basing it on please, i do this for a living............

Ryanair's minimum of 80 sectors is no doubt financially driven.

Jet2's 20 sectors minimum is for TRd or similar type experienced pilots and it's 40 minimum for Abos.

Anyway, you can't tell the quality of instruction simply from the minimum number of sectors required and arguably you'd need more training sectors if the instruction is poor.

To be fair there is also a consideration about the route network. If the network included only the large, major, radar, ILS type airports then the required number of sectors might seem quite low. They are all the same structure and you fly the numbers and do as ATC tells you. You can study the taxi charts before the flight, but everything else is pretty standard.
If the network covers a variety of airfield types, approaches and differing types of environment during all 4 seasons it might explain why some carriers would like a fuller exposure before releasing raw cadets on to the line. That seems a common sense philosophy. I'm not saying that a line training roster is constructed with such an overview, sadly, but it could explain why there are more sectors with some than others if it was. Another idea could be that, given the low experience of many captains in todays rapidly expanding airlines, it is thought wise to have the cadets at a higher level of proficiency before being teamed up with a new boy in LHS.
I wonder if any of the above is indeed in the thinking of those who decide such matters.

"Ryanair's minimum of 80 sectors is no doubt financially driven."

How does that work? I understand that FR pilots don't get paid whilst on line training, but the safety pilot will...

Safety pilot is only there for the first few sectors. Once released, the cadet starts getting paid.

Exactly, which is why I'm intrigued about LSM's point about 80 sectors being 'financially driven'? At all times there will be two pilots on the flight deck getting paid.

As a matter of interest, when I joined Laker Airways in 1979, we were expected to check out on the DC-10 in 12 sectors. Most of us had no trouble achieving this but then we were all quite experienced and certainly all of us had considerably more than 200 hours in our logbooks.