The airline will not change it's culture nor it'll be changing their t&c's. Maybe some minor bonuses etc. might come to sort everything out but nothing permanent. That's just how the airline is built and how the management thinks about it.

I was told during my type rating, line training and line flying to leave. By several captains who all said the same; "Believe me I've been here x amount of years, nothing will change regardless what happens". Seeing these cancellations to happen is music to my ears personally but I'd still encourage everyone in the company to pursue something elsewhere, if they can. I understand the guys/girls who has limited options or actually have found a base/situation they've managed to sort their life in. Good for them. Anyone else hoping that something will change; It won't.

I'd rather stop flying than return there.

There might be a slight problem with that. Air Berlin operates an Airbus only fleet. So those pilots are Airbus rated. Yes, a few kept their old 737 rating active, but most didn't. Still, yes, Ryanair was the first to offer a job to AB pilots, 2 hours after the news broke about the brankruptcy they had a job offer in their Linkedin inboxes. Base of choice, direct contract with Ryanair, 20.000€ signing bonus and €130k a year (at 900 hours though).

What happened to the old pre-EASA 'trick' of zeroing pilots hours at the start old pre- financial year in April? Is that still allowed, or do all pilots, and rostering, keep a rolling 7 day, 28 day, 90 day + annual total? If the zeroing policy was stopped that would have an impact on increasing pilot numbers.

There is some irony here. RYR is a cash machine. They fly >90m pax. Recently they introduced a €2 'seat choice' charge. About 40m pax take up the option. K-ching. The profits rise €80m. No R&D investment; no improvement in product; no capital investment and profits rise by nearly 10%. Brilliant. And if you lower T's & C's as well, at no cost, then profits rise even more. The irony is that 5 years go, after the Volcanic ash affair, they added a €2 charge for 'EU261 compensation' bills. They claimed that affair had cost them €60-80m. Over the past 5 years there has not been a repeat, but every year €160m went into the kitty. K-ching at no extra cost. Now, by their own hand, they will have to dip into that kitty and spend out some of that EU261 insurance premium. It'll be like pulling teeth, but it will need to be done.
One wonders what will be the next €2 add on to recover profits. It is an astonishing business to be able to boost profits by 10% at no investment cost or improvement to the product, just by an inconspicuous € here & € there. Think what €1 could do to provide a proper pension fund & proper T's & C's. and stop crews having to pay for their own recurrent training and associated travel costs etc. etc. They might even then have enough pilots and not have to pay EU261 compensations. i.e. money invested wisely and productively instead of being spent painfully to achieve only negative PR outcomes.

Sounds like the wheels are finally falling off at Ryanair....!

Don't worry, as usual, dozens of their contractors will come to the rescue flying on their month off and thinking that they are making "extra hours" that way. My colleagues still there already told me about a few cases.

Poor ignorants.... RYR pilots have always lacked balls.

Yeah sickening stuff goes on but people have been aware of this for years and still sign the dotted line. I'm talking about the youngsters who don't have a mortgage and no debts as mum and dad payed their training. These are the ones that will trample over anyone and drop their pants to their ankles. The secret is to get a decent job before you get a mortgage. No sympathy for FR merecenaries.

So if you had a freshly minted CPL/IR in hand, you would gladly stay in the dole queue rather than kick start your career with Ryanair assuming there was no other option? It seems hard to believe that someone would be so noble in the face of having their career, potentially permanently, put on hiatus. Are we also supposed to believe that someone who, through sheer circumstance and good fortune ended up in a pleasant company enjoying generous T&Cs that their predecessors have fought for, are simply made of sterner stuff - if they were to end up in the position of a Ryanair pilot, their unstoppable willpower and sense of decency would stop the rot, not like those thousands of cowards who currently work there, sobbing during the pushback, absolutely incapable of improving their situation because they lack the cast iron balls of those gentlemen aviators in Air Utopia.

My posts keep being deleted so this one may not stay up for long. But, a gentle reminder, chaps. Airlines are not in business to employ pilots. We jump on the band waggon . Top stars were here today, gone tomorrow; Laker (BUA/Laker Airways), Bristow,Goodman etc, etc.They and those of today are all top performing aces in the industry, within their field. Entrepreneurs out to make a lot of money and hugely successful in their pursuits. "We" hitch our wagons to those shooting stars and must accept the fall-out when, in "our" field, it all goes belly up.


As "commercial" pilots, go wherever it suits you & be prepared to jump wherever the grass looks greener. The loyalty cards became extinct, decades ago.


I still serve on Selection Boards in a consultancy role . I still hear CP's asking "How long do you intend staying with us ?". I stifle a giggle into my sleeve.

More than what their own pilots now earn in some bases, good offer!

Well doesn't it just serve them right
 

Ha ha ha ha ha At last the arrogant self important Irishman can see what happens when
you treat one of your most important employee groups, the pilots, like under paid overworked
taxi drivers ! I hope your unfortunate customers remember your total disregard for them when
they next book a ticket with you.

But that is not always possible as many of the more sought after jobs are in airlines with seniority.

Seniority is massively to blame for this industry's woes. It thwarts job mobility and so traps those in seniority based airlines and stops movement of experienced (Captains) pilots into seniority based airlines allowing the likes of FR to take advantage.

Yet the unions still push seniority as all pilots have is industrial might and so protects the unions' membership levels.

AGREED 100%

Seniority is great when you want to keep all the backstabbing whores out of the CP office.
Nice to see that karma is b***, even with RYR. I am getting a popcorn and I plan to enjoy the show.

Anybody heard that Ray (Rene for the dutch) Conway has resigned!?

As far as I know it was a gross misconduct offence for a ryr pilot to delay a flight for non operational reasons.
One wonders if any management will suffer (position or bonus) at the hands of the shareholders.
Who if any should take the blame for this ? CEO / Director of flight ops / personnel ......or maybe we should blame pilots for leaving / not joining or taking holidays 😀

If Ray has resigned genuinely sorry to hear that.

However what is clear is that the lunatics that took over the asylum were never going to blame themselves.

Seems like a hoax though

Titanic is sinking :}

They make the profit that most Airlines can only dream of and still not enough. When eventually all the facts are known it'll probably be used as a lesson during business courses.

In case of cabin crew their “holidays” it’s an unpaid leave….

They make the profit that most Airlines can only dream of and still not enough.

LH, AF/KLM USA companies all make handsome profits and have hugely better T's & C's. Why does anyone think they can reinvent the wheel? True, much good has come out of the LOCo revolution. High priced cartels have been broken; pax have benefitted. The majors have responded and cut their cloth accordingly, but not too much to tarnish their product. Pax & workers knew they were unsustainable. I've mates in various large majors and yes, they do work more hours than they used to, and retire later, but their deals are light years ahead of the LoCo's, they still make good profits and mostly the employees are happy; because they see what is going on on the outside. It was all cosy & rosy now it's a fair days pay for a fair days work and the fringe benefits still remain.

Difficult to apply any of that to Alex Cruz's work on BA

It seems that RYR has stopped sending updates about cancellations to the ScoreBuddy website in order to try to stop bad publicity

https://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/r...ate=2017-09-17

6 weeks? Sounds like RYR are biting their lips hard till the season is over and won't be needing as many pilots. Their Facebook reviews page has turned out quite interesting..

And that sign up bonus must be coming from the profit made from the cadet TR?

I believe next week is the AGM, this should prove interesting

It really is a 'spin too far' to try and pin the blame for this fiasco on 'over paid & underworked pilots' (only 18hours/week according to some RYR claims) who are now having to have extra holiday imposed by the IAA & EASA. 'It is out of our control and not our fault.'

Who was it that said, "you should keep quiet and let people thing you are a fool rather than open your mouth.........

How is the training dept staffed up to create enough new cadets & commands before the next wave of a/c arrive? Don't these trainers also need holidays? Indeed, do they have enough sims even?

Apparantly the training department is struggling too, allegedly dire need for LTCs but no capacity to SIM them and nobody wants to be an SFI because most never fly and are constantly hounded to work days off and do favours for nothing in return.

If you still work for Ryanair, time to talk to the press
 

I'd suggest that anyone who works for Ryanair and also knows the reality of what's going on to cause this contacts one of the many outlets that reported it.
I know they are very keen and your anonymity will be guaranteed.
Telegraph
Sky
Guardian to name a few.

This is the perfect opportunity to shine a light on what is the Ryanair experience.

Best wishes

Agreed 100% above.

Angry pax now have a facebook group
 

Justice is served ice cold. I sincerely hope everyone puts a claim in and let this bunch of thieves bleed. Crew leaves for a reason, now it's time to face reality.

Funny it's mentioned to be 6 weeks - exactely when the winter schedule starts for which less people are needed anyway due to the grounding of airframes. So the actual problem will be disguised as 50-60 airplanes will be on the ground from that moment on...

Just to clear up the rumours - no one has resigned or walked out, such as crew controllers or the Chief Pilot.

Cock up over annual leave / flight cancellations? Yes.

Wheels falling off wagon / armageddon? No.

How does the IAA view this situation? RYR are knowingly selling tickets for 100% of their flights while at the same time saying 40-80 i.e. about 2% per day will be cancelled eventually; and that those affected pax overseas will be stranded for an indefinite period. This is not the same as over selling a flight and then being bumped. It is selling a product you can not guarantee to provide.
If a charter flight, which was an out/back with same pax, is cancelled for whatever reason, the host airline would have a rescue a/c en-route ASAP. The same is happening into the Caribbean to rescue pax stranded from schedule flights. Here we have a situation where the pax will be stranded directly as a result of the host airline's fault & last minute decision.
Surely the IAA have some influence on the financial & social operating behaviour of a local airline?

Can someone answer, with authority, what 'full refund' means? Is it the ticket price or the total amount you paid? The latter can be nearly double the former. There is a question about compensation payments. Considering those whose work schedule & income will be affected by being stranded overseas the figures could be significant. Even where children miss out school and parents are fined. The variety of people & their lives & responsibilities that could be affected is huge. How many will not take the risk of booking a return flight within the next 6 weeks?

Ultimately the CAA is to blame for allowing low cost airlines to max out their crews' rosters in pursuit of maximum profit. This is a safety related issue rather than an economic issue. The CAA must bring FTL's into the 21st century to combat ruthless low cost airline management practices.
Airline fatigue needs addressing now.

dgoliver, you'll be waiting for hell to freeze over before any authority does anything about that. You and I both know how these things work, the authority is reactionary, I.e. it will take a smoking hole in the ground for them to even consider a change. Can't you remember the new EASA FTLs doing the rounds through the European courts a few years ago? Something they fought so hard to implement won't be handed back on a plate.

The authority is part of the system. The only thing that matters is that everything is legal (legal does not necessary mean moral).

Wouldn't surprise me if they always knew they'd never be able to crew these flights. Just didn't want competitors getting the business. Would prefer to lose cash on compensation payouts as opposed to allow competitiors to grow their market share.

I'd love to see the minutes of their meetings.

In general, I've always wondered who says a companies minutes reflect what was said or indeed intended...