Ryanair does not have the best roster in the industry. My present employer (22 years) is far better. No I'm not saying it's the best in the industry but far better than Ryanair. Why do people write such rubbish?

My bold

.

Philip Von Schoeppenthau, General Secretary of the European Cockpit Association on Morning Ireland today.

Emirates is holding a roadshow in Stansted.

http://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/pilots/#events

From the frying pan into the fire? From one operator who is desperately short of pilots and who cares nothing about anyone to another. And if you are "lucky" make sure you always pay attention, don't miss any radio calls and maintain your situational awareness, especially when pilot monitoring.

Piltdown Man
I agree with what you say, but that does not even cover the half of it.

In the eyes of the public,it passes the sniff test.I know it shouldn't but it does.

Why is that? Because the flight crew have lousy if any PR to respond. Why is that if IALPA is awake?

Not a nice airline but a great business. €50 million euro in costs - they would prefer not to have it due to there own poor corporate planning of manpower v aircraft but its peanuts.

Indeed. A few years ago RYR added €2/ticket for EU261 payments after the volcanic ash debacle. Work it out. >€150m pa; how much have they paid out in this years. Pure profit. The pax have already paid for their own compensation.

There is a general shortage of Captains at the moment, all over the industry, there is not enough experienced guys to make sure the operations run smoothly.

Add the fact never ending expansions puts even more pressure on the airlines, and there are players in market that are offering better service and quality than Ryanair at the moment, but for passengers and crews.

Sure there the ones happy to pay £1 for a ticket, and £150 for the extras, but I believe the tide or this misrepresentation is about to turn, people are not as DUMB as many airlines have treated them.

Sure you will have the masses of low income families travelling who can only afford Ryanair's flights, however if there is no crews, because of bad treatment, than it shows it's a business model that is not sustainable.

If any here have been a passenger with example Norwegian short haul, and you compare it with Ryanair, you would be amazed, flying as a passenger with Norwegian is probably closer to national carrier levels. Sure they have had their own problems this year, offering pilots £2400 to work on their off / leave days, because they DON'T HAVE ENOUGH pilots.

Listening to MOL, and his lies, I am shocked that there is not a revolt in the company, the total LACK OF RESPECT for the people working for him, and how he constantly plays his PR game, where he insults the whole profession, I am sorry it is disgusting that there is not enough coercion within the company that they don't just refuse to work for such a disrespectful leader as MOL, both towards passengers and crew.

With todays technology, this should not be a problem to organise, or at least work to rule.
What people need to understand, they are DESPERATE for pilots, Norwegian are desperate for pilots, most UK airlines are currently recruiting massive numbers, the companies will not start firing the ones they have at this moment, this is the momentum Ryanair pilots have been waiting for, but they unfortunately seem spineless to seize the moment and make it count.

The PR machine of the pilots and unions are weak, although this is the moment where you would probably even get massive public support, as the anger is growing.

This summer Norwegian offered Captains £2400 a day, to come and work on they off days.
Ryanair could face massive class-action lawsuits.

Ryanair have been trying to be very creative in the way they have handled this, probably actually making money on this.

A view from SLF ...

I fly, as a passenger, 6-10 times a year.
If Ryanair have a flight that is:
- Between the airports I need
- At a time I want
- Cheap (has to be cheap to put up with the customer service)
then I would, in the past, have used them.

NEVER again - I can't risk them cancelling my flight without THEM paying for the replacement.
I will usually have time off work, accomodation, car hire, etc. booked - so changing dates isn't an option.
By the time they decide to tell me any cheap flights, on other carriers, will be long gone.

If I was a shareholder I would be spitting feathers at the moment.
Shares hit a high of €19.78 6 weeks ago - they are currently down at €16.02 (a 20% fall). The last time they were that low was the beginning of May.

Could they? Ireland's legal system doesn't have Class-Action litigation, and nor do those of most european countries. You'd need an excuse to move the cases into a jurisdiction which allowed class-actions.

“One of the issues that I think we have to address is that maybe we have got the pilot pay a bit on the low side,” O’Leary said. “Maybe we have pushed it a little bit far in terms of pilot pay and pilot productivity.”

Face it O'Leary, your model of IR is dead.They never imagined implementing their twisted logic for workplace control against declining supply. Said elewhere, but adversarial IR is done.

One posits that the poster boy of aviation IR is torn down and his clan of followers from Air Asia's Fernandes to Qantas' Joyce are also shown to be the hollow mean in their part of the world.

Pilots are not the only part of an airline, it takes a huge number of people, but without them there is nothing with which to derive the revenue for all the expensive administrative staff to consume

As a long time airline pilot living far away from Europe I am most pleased to witness the fallout due to o'leary's greed. He is one of the main players responsible for the degeneration of our careers. The low cost carrier model has influenced pilot's salaries and terms and conditions throughout the globe.
I have never and will never encourage my children to become pilots.
The glory days are long gone and will never return. Bring on the pilot shortage

Southwest goes from strength to strength by valuing its passengers and employees.O'Leary's lamentable excuse for an airline and many like it drag the industry down.Very few airlines left worth a damn.
Last post for me...this site isnt what it used to be either.

Is it difficult for investors to see that Ryanair needs a massive cultural shift in order to ensure long term sustainability? It's impossible to think how the management's existing employment relations model has any future. The multitude of court cases & litigation alongside the disastrous levels of employee/contractor turnover surely doesn't hold much longevity any more? No matter how much PR you spin to the public about being able to magic thousands of crew from the non existent pilot tree, or decisive ECJ rulings not effecting the way you do business; major investors surely must know the facts?

The way flight cancellations have been dealt with has been a fiasco according to both passengers & the CAA. But what exactly are the IAA doing? It all seems a bit strange.

I find it hard to believe how Ryanair will re-invent themselves again after this one. Not exactly fitting with the slogan 'Always getting better.'

FR are bleeding cash now - another poster did some rough figures and proposed its around 2M a day in lost Revenues and refunds. Then there's the damage to the brand, and the repercussions of future bookings falling through consumer fears of cancellations.
Yet MOL offers his pilots 10K€ DEFERRED for a YEAR to give up Annual Leave NOW?
If that isn't evidence of pig headed insanity I don't know what is. The house is on fire and he's pissing on the firemen!

On the other hand - nobody wants to see FR fail. The last thing pilots need right now is 4,000 jobless guys on the market. I wish them all the best - I think there's finally light at the end of the tunnel for them.

I do want to see Ryanair fail. Yes there will be massive unemployment for a short period but other airlines and new ones will step in to cover the gap left by Ryanair.

Their planes and customers will not just simply disappear. It's like the head of a drug cartel, you kill the boss and 3 others step in to take his place.

RYR will not fail. It is far too cash rich. But it does need to learn some harsh lessons and take a leaf out of South Wests book. That will though require a change of leadership.

So Ryanair got the info wrong on compensation bit economical with the truth we would probably agree.
So the next question is the 18hr week (1000 flying hours divided by 52 weeks) and "there's no fatigue"
Start making amends Mr OL

This might be a disaster for Ryanair but it is also bad for the whole of the industry who seem not to give a toss about the customer. Sooner or later they will say enough is enough of being dragged off the cattle transports, their travel arrangements thrown into disarray by flight delays and cancellations, being frisked, stripped searched, stacked and packed into gulag queues, sleeping on terminal floors and suffering all manner of ignonimity for the pathetic pleasures of a litre or two of cheap lager, sangria or some other foul concoction under the mosquito infested skies above some distant shore.

I wouldn't lose any sleep if FR failed but it's not going to happen. In an ideal world we could do without RYR, Small Planet, Smart Lynx, Primera, l'avion all of whom use some pretty dodgy HR practices but the CAA just press the ignore button until they are shamed into it.

What a bundle of joy you must've been to your parents.

Even Mo Farah has a bit of fat and I bet he 'carbs himself up' before a race. Anything that runs lean, mean and flat out will eventually crash for the sake a carrying a bit of fat. It might best be called "resilience". It means you still have a buffer should the unexpected occur. The multi-millionaire MOL has been caught short by the monster he has created. RYR will survive but will they and other organisations learn from his basic mistake. If you rip the heart out of you business and replace it with cash, you have no value. Man needs more than cash to live. RYR will have less cash left after this debacle, but will they have learnt their lesson?

Ironic that UK CAA is implementing and holding to account under Regulation (EC) 261/2004 of European and Council - another EU based airline whose own delegated aviation authority appears to be publicly mute on this significant CAT matter.

Is this what they call in classic EU speak "reste à liquider par les autres"?

I've always thought that sooner or later passengers are going to get sick and tired of being treated so poorly by certain airlines. I'd wager we have some distance to go yet though.

Does anyone here seriously believe that people will stop flying with Ryanair? People have a short memory and are hungry for a bargain. They will quickly forget this fiasco and come back for more punishment in the future. £9.99 to Malaga? Book it quick before the price goes up! Anyone with the slightest insight into economics and finance would judge that this is nothing more than a buying opportunity for Ryanair shares.

The reality is that we are all addicted to cheap travel, and cheap pretty much everything else. It's basically a drug. Who here hasn't seen something in a shop and then checked amazon before deciding where to buy it? Ultimately we're all guilty of the same rampant indifference when it comes to the consequences of our buying decisions, whether its Sports Direct, Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo... the list goes on and on. That is the nature of unbridled capitalism.

The only way the problem gets sorted is if one of two things happens.

1 ) Government and the regulators actually man up and hold companies like Ryanair to account, which is why it was at least a little gratifying to watch the CAA Chief executive get animated about the subject this week - god knows all of us who occupy these forums must have been wondering when and if he was even capable of it. It's also why terms and conditions in the USA are sky rocketing - because after the Colgan Air crash the regulator actually took some meaningful action.

Unfortunately the Irish regulator doesn't seem to be particularly fond of regulating, presumably because it would result in less airlines choosing to be registered in Ireland and less money flowing into the coffers. And we all thought it was going to be Brexit that was responsible for a low-regulation low-tax "rogue" state on the fringes of Europe. Anyone fancy an apple? :rolleyes:

2) Employees finally realise that the only way to improve their lot is to unionise and hold companies to account through legally conducted IA. I don't really understand why this hasn't happened in Ryanair. Surely there must be an appetite for it?

Here's hoping that one or both of the above comes to pass or nothing at all will change.

NM....hum ho....£9.99 to Malaga......funny you should mention that. I have just booked it and have been doing so, occasionally for years. (another £9.99 for the return trip). I do not buy any of the extras on offer.
Just recently there has been the suggestion that I and others like me should be paying 'proper' fares.
'Proper' fares cannot be paid from my income. If it needs much more money, I cannot travel; I am unworried about that. People in this income bracket will be cut out; (doesn't matter)
In working life I operated my own business and occasionally offered services in this predatory pricing manner....it was in my interests to occasionally do so. Nobody complained to me.
In addition to my own low personal air fare on my Ryanair flight,.......much bigger fares have been paid by many other passengers.
Thus aside from gratuitous verbal disrespect now and then from MOL I find it hard to see what pilots are complaining about. Surely they can ignore random nonsense soundbites? If they are not prepared to unionise surely each individual can be aware of the rules that govern their working lives and work strictly to rule if they feel so inclined ? And of course move on, when ready.

rifruffian

I do appreciate that Ryanair and other low cost airlines have brought affordable travel to the masses and that, in some ways, they should be applauded for that. It has also brought substantial employment opportunities to pilots.

That does not, however, divorce Ryanair from its responsibilities as an employer. Your £9.99 fare to Malaga is a result of the bully boy tactics which Ryanair deploys against suppliers, airports & employees and even to a certain extent its own customers. All I'm suggesting is that those parties finally stand up for themselves and say "enough is enough".

I hope they do so, and if they do, I'm sure the market will adjust and I doubt whatever the new price is, that you won't be able to afford it.

Of course it could afford it. It would cost them around 5% off the profit to give all pilots a 20k pay rise. About 80m.

These 18,000 flight cancelled will cost them about 130m...and thats excluding the ancillaries.. (40e ave fare and a 95% load factor) and who knows what brand damage and future bookings will cost them now.

He would rather cancel flights than see his staff happy. Deplorable man.

No they won't.

Tempted to book a flight for 9.99 on a high risk leg to claim my EU payment. So which legs are they primarily dropping at the moment?

Will pax change their buying process? Never

Will pilots continue to apply / stay at Ryanair? Finally debatable.

Regardless of pax demand, can the current flight volume be maintained with insufficient crew? Absolutely not

Will investors be interested in Ryanair if they cannot continue to deliver growth? Doubtful if there is doubt over Ryanair’s ability to crew current let alone increased flight volume.

Can Ryanair continue without investors / growth? Not for ever.

So don’t look to pax or Ryanair or investors to change. The ONLY group with the power to change is the crew.

Hopefully there is much going on under the radar with the crew to drive this change. They should continue to work together while not shouting their plans from the rooftops so that the Chief Pikey can’t move to counter their actions.

Switching airlines
 

SLF here. Wishing the pilots well from the outside this looks like your chance.. Perhaps market forces will dictate better terms and conditions anyway.. Can only say that my business has a new policy of not booking Ryanair flights any more. At a personal level for our Christmas flights home I paid more to book aer lingus. I can only imagine that a percentage of people out there won't book Ryanair now out of fear their plans are messed up. Wish the flight and cabin crews the best of luck in getting better pay.

Ryanair hasn't gone to the stock market for more funds in a long time. Quite the opposite actually, they are returning money to investors through one-off dividends and share buybacks. So technically they can continue indefinately without new investors, as long as they don't make losses.
Growth, or fluctuation, in the actual share price just benefits staff with share options, and ensures the current management stays in place by satisfying speculators.

rif,

I think you'd have to experience it to fully understand what could happen to you as a pilot in Ryanair. Sure, many of the problems the pilots face are luxury problems to other groups in society that are less fortunate. Does that make them less legitimate? I don't think so personally. While it's not the most academic job out there people have generally put a great deal of commitment into getting a job as a pilot. I think that should be respected. Regardless of profession I think management should always respect that you are a human being with certain needs for security, financial and social.

Ryanair can be a great place if you've got the base of choice, a steady roster and quite alright money. At the end, most people or not so upset about the money they make but all the other 'little things'. The basing policy is a disgrace and there is no regard to loyalty (as in; basing based on seniority). The contracts when you start are all, or used to be when I was there, zero-hour contracts. No fly no pay. Break a leg? Unlucky you. Hope you've saved up. Only the direct Ryanair contracts provide a certain protection. They keep insisting on hiring you on Irish contract, somehow claiming you're working on Irish territory and thus should be governed by Irish laws and practices. Without knowing them all in full, I understand they're quite weak compared to many other European countries. Hence you're denied certain rights in your home country ( not necessarily by the local authority, but by Ryanair). I have never heard a Ryanair pilot being granted paternity leave. I have nevered heard a Ryanair pilot go on his statutory summer holiday. I have never heard a Ryanair pilot go part time for studying. If you're British you may think I am talking out of my arse, but in some European countries these are fundamental rules that all other companies have o play by. Ryanair think they're somehow above that. Fortunately the European Court of Justice has now put it down on paper that 'home base' should be the primary marker as to which laws you should be governed by.

So while the verbal disrespect you mentioned can be a nuisance, there is much bigger fish to fry for the employees, I fully understand your situation and price of the fares. Going on holiday is, again, a luxury problem. I wish everyone could have the opportunity, but i don't think it should be at the expense of others.

Here here 172! Will the right honourable member remain standing and take the ovation. I do feel that we pilots keep doing it to ourselves and, often, as resolute and self motivated as MOL.

Way back, I left the comfort zone of our National carrier. I was desperate for a B707 or 727 rating which I would have then used to jumpship, downroute if necessary and offer myself to my carrier of choice.

I was seduced by a highly attractive operator and fell for the high profile conduct of it's owner. The Base was ostensibly LGW. In fact, we did one week at Manch, two days off, one week in Berlin, two days off and back to Manch. I never did get to see LGW other than from a pax perspective in the back of a commuting BCAL 1-11. Back home, the dog bit me & the kids called me uncle.

Basic pay was low but allowances were high. If I worked, I almost doubled my pay from BA days. If I didn't work (sick, eave etc ) the bank manager was on my back.

Company further seduced us 1-11 drivers with A310 (for it's time, hugely attractive) and ordered, about ,11 of them. Massive order for DC10's too meant I was space-bound and could expect my first Command to be on wide-body, yes, LGW Based, near my home.

I woke up to reality and resigned in order to go for actual rather than promised opportunity. I never noticed that there was a six month notice period rather than the industry norm of three. I pleaded to be released but was threatened with court action for breach of contract. I got legal advice & decided to go to court. In my last three months, I was taken off the roster as a Base/IR renewal was due. I was kept at home, out of check and severely out of cheque ! I joined my new operator in old clothes and worn out shoes.

The new employers were top-dog. Boeing course in Seattle. All transfers & very high standard accommodation paid for. Full allowances (away from Base) paid in advance.Very highly sought after type rating paid for with no bond. I did, kinda, repay. I stayed from start to horrible demise. The company's that is, although I didn't fare too well either, for a bit.

Yet, we still have, I am sure, tons of pilots ready to sign up for the terms & conditions offered by the likes of Ryanair. We will continue to do so and no, there is no solution.MOL has every right to stick two fingers up to us & laugh all the way to the bank. I do, frankly, admire his entrepreneurial skill.

Point of no return!
 

I think RYR has passed point of no return with regards to the old way of treating and paying pilots.

Here is why: In a resent memo it is stated they have 445 ac next summer and 25 are grounded. This winter the number is 400 minus 10.
A factor of 5,2 crew per aircraft now is going to increase to 5,4 in the future.

Hallo, what did they slip in the coffee,, that white powder sure was not sugar!!!

The rate of pilots leaving is off the scale. The one staying are not linetraining or TRE ing anymore.

Unless the Terms and Pay goes up by 30 to 40% and local contracts are applied, people are just not interested.

With the expansion retirement and pilots leaving, we are looking at a net 1000 pilots plus the next 18 months.
It is just not done.

Oh . and as long as Mr O and his incompetent gang is at the helm, not much will change. He is going to destroy the company.
This Company has great potential, but it is still a fact: No Captain , no FO , no pushback.
Happy Days

Maybe a limited work conflict would have been better for Ryanair than a pure schedule shrink:
They don't have to worry about investors because they are not looking for more money in the markets.
They wouldn't have to pay striking staff and their pilots would be flush with hours affterwards. They could temporary suspend other unneeded staff, without pay.
Striking group wouldn't have been oragnised for long so wouldn't have built up funds for a long conflict.
FR could whrink their schedule and would just need to give affected passengers their money back but wouldn't have to reroute them, put them on other modes of transport or compensate them.
It would shift the public's blame to the striking group and sympathy to the company.
In the end the conflict would be solved with a lesser increase in payment to the pilots than what they got, or a reorganisation in direction of less contracting, more social protection and even less in the hand.

Ryanair will always be a paradox - Folk know full well what they are like and yet still join. I suspect the level of experienced crew recruitment is somewhat less than that of newbie / cadet level, but as someone alluded to earlier, an airline needs to keep a careful eye on its experience demographic. Start losing that experience, and more importantly, training experience and the thing will unravel.
Given the level of outrage and interest is outfits like Sports Direct and Uber and the attention to zero hour contracts I remain astounded that this airline's employment practices haven't come under closer scrutiny. However, if you have bills to pay and you understood what you were joining it is difficult to get things changed. The only way to voice your displeasure is by leaving - a difficult option for most.
I personally do not respond well to bully boy company tactics and wish the company and MOL (in its current form) ill. For all the working staff FD, CC, admin check in etc etc who essentially provide the obscene profits, I wish well and desperately hope some good comes out of this to their advantage.
I'm sure OLeary will survive on even a small percentage of what he has reaped.

Ryanair (Crewing) are now telling everybody who calls sick that they must contact one of the managers (D..R...) the following day. Upon which, said manager will then tell them that their sickness is suspicious, and that they cannot position home at the end of the week if they call sick the following day too. So essentially, Ryanair are now threatening anybody who calls sick.

Utterly illegal and in complete contempt of safety. When are the authorities going to act upon these cowboys?

That`s got me reminiscing. There was a time when air travel was a delight and to be an airline pilot meant something, not to me alone but to all. But of course I was a bundle of joy, must say more so to my nanny than my parents.

Ryanair flight attendant lifts the lid on startling working conditions ? and plans for a revolt

Spreading to the cabin crew ranks now. It could be a perfect storm for O'Leary.

I would love to know what percentage of cabin crew earn €40k. Another Ryanair :mad: story I guess,