RYANAIR pilots, please share your thoughts/ experience
 

Gentlemen, good morning, afternoon or evening


I would like to invite/ ask for the pilots here who currently working at Ryanair, or have done it in the recent past, to share thoughts and experience of how things are there, pros and cons, average salary would be good to know too, perspective of the future, well basically anything to a rookie would be good to know.


to contextualize, I understand that the position is an outstanding opportunity for a cadet, but wonder how it would be for a expat (I’m current on the 737, almost 2K hours on type and got curious about it after the company’s last tour on South America)

Thanks



PS: I know that there are numerous threads and posts on PPRUNE, but most of them are outdated or scattered all around, thus this new thread

Second hand info but from what I hear not a good place to work. Captains discretion is expected and followed up with tea and bikkies if not applied.

sickness even if severe and real is frowned upon.

after the fact ftl numbers adjusted by company.


I considered them but no more after hearing from people working there, go there to get experience and get the hell out.

Bull****

Not sure which airline Oasis is describing it’s not the Ryanair I know.

Its not for everyone but 6500 pilots can’t all be deluded.

Go to the recruitment day and see for yourself what they have to say. If you don’t like it there will be no hard feelings.

As it is in all other airlines, that's what it is for - to enable flights to be completed safely in unforseen circumstances.

Of course they can, that's why most of them are there in the first place.

It is not unforeseen if it happens on a regular basis, and no, it is not expected in every airline.
And most of all, it goes both ways: in the spirit of the law for every time the skipper extends a max fdp, there is no reason why he should not extend the rest or reduce the fdp (think of all those 4 summer sectors with slot, unruly passengers, etc etc), which from what my friends are telling me, never happens in Ryanair.

Ex-Ryanair skipper here who left the company in the past year.

The company has many issues and it's not for everyone, but most of the second-hand accounts you hear are bull****.

Discretion is not a problem, I have refused discretion before with no consequences, as have other captains at my base. Ops won't be happy about it, but you won't be brought in for disciplinary action.

Same for sickness and fatigue, I think I called in sick between 2-14 days per year over my time at Ryanair and I was only called once for a welfare check and to remind me to file sick paperwork that I had forgotten.

FTL numbers are not adjusted purposely, if significant delays are foreseen, say the aircraft you were supposed to take went tech down route, they will delay your report time. The system is mostly automatic with electronic flight plans and journey logs, occasionally, submitting the electronic paperwork can adjust the recorded times as they overwrite the manually adjusted times by ops. A call to crew control fixes this.

The company has cleaned up its act over the years as it's grown and is a massive operation and when things go wrong there are never enough ops controllers to deal with the fallout.

In response to OP's question:

- Salary is very dependent on base, post-unionisation and AOC split each country has its own payscale, contracts etc. I believe the Italians have the best contracts due to Italian tax law. The Polish/eastern Europeans are all self-employed with high net pay but no direct employment protections etc etc.

- The kind of flying is also very base dependent, the Italian bases mostly run like regional airline rosters with lots of domestic flights, mostly 4 sector days. The big bases have the largest variety of flying but also standby's there cover other bases also. The smaller bases you'll fly with the same faces every day though less variation in routes.

- Command upgrades are generally at 3k hours/900 in the company (don't quote me on the second part) I believe, you'll be pressured into it if they think you're ready. Though if you're in one of the niche positions where they have issues with FO cover, such as Ryanair UK at the moment, they'll delay as much as they think they can.

- Base transfer is based on seniority/date of application. You can apply for a base transfer and you'll be bottom of the queue, though once a year it refreshes in order of seniority. Their favourite line is "base allocation is not base transfer" so you may find new hires and upgrades getting to your base ahead of you.

- Ops, the pilots and cabin crew you work with will be fantastic, you get the occasional oddball, like every airline. Management on the other hand varies from incompetent to toxic, and if you ever have the displeasure of dealing with them, you'll understand why so many eventually leave.

- The training is stellar and can fault nothing in the training department, it's a well-oiled machine and probably the largest ATO in Europe. There are far far more SOPs than most airlines, and they want everything done in their specific ways, at least during line checks and SIMs. On the line if something goes wrong and you weren't following SOPs, say flying a visual or circling in your preferred method, you take the blame.

- Management view you as a resource to be used efficiently and a cost to be minimised instead of an asset. Expect to fly up to 900 hours a year, if a duty is legal, expect to operate it. If and when the tide turns on pilots supply and demand, expect them to cut Ts and Cs as they did during COVID. The business is run ruthlessly, which is great for investors and **** for employees. We were the last to get pay rises and the first to see pay cuts in comparison to our colleagues at other airlines.

That all being said, it's what works for you, if you're Italian, Polish or Spanish, Ryanair is probably the best-paying employer if you want to live at a regional base in your country and be home every night. It's a great airline for the beginning of your career as it exposes you to a variety of operations and situations, the training is great and if you can handle it for 6 years, you'll be a skipper with five thousand hours bond free. In my experience, most OCC captains don't last more than 2 years before they leave, FOs generally hang around longer. There's a reason they're casting a wide net and doing roadshows in South America and Africa.

Think about what it is you want, if it's to live at home or at a specific city or a fast command and PIC hours, Ryanair is the right place for you.

Edit: I just noticed you're in the Southern Hemisphere, most of the OCC Brazilians/Ecuadorians I've flown with love it here compared to their previous job at Copa. So if you're there, it's not a bad transition! If you can squeeze a Spanish/Portuguese base out of Ryanair, I think you won't regret the move.

Have flown with captains from Brazil. They all loved it here and like above said how it was a different (better) world compared to the airlines they left behind.

Regarding sickness. Its based on periods of sickness rather than days. So if you go sick 1 day that's 1 period. If you go sick 10 days straight, that's also 1 period.

For less than 3 days you fill out a form and send it to them. For more than 3 days you provide a GP certificate. You won't hear from anyone the first few times for sure. The sickness policy is not an issue.

Hard to add much to the lengthy post above. What I would add though is the continual issue about standby calls. Say you have a SBY starting at 0700LT. They often send you about 6 texts at 3AM about the assigning of a duty at 0700LT exactly (they aren't supposed to contact you until 0700LT, so earliest duty can't be before 0800LT). Naturally you will see all those texts at say 4AM because even if you've muted their number, at some point in the night many people check their phone.

So at 4AM you check to see they've assigned you a duty they should not have assigned you, they've also now disturbed your rest. You tell them they werent supposed to either give you that duty or disturb your rest .. they will literally say unfortunately we need you for an 0700LT, tough luck. Good luck fighting it, they will hold you fully liable to the duty. Yes in theory you could dig your heels, that however will cause some fallback and you'll be accused of refusing a duty/get a no show. You are forced to accept that or report for that 0700LT report on 4hrs sleep at best cos you haven't slept again after first seeing what has happened.

The solution of course is to switch absolutely everything off until the very start of your standby time, but my point is they do play these not so friendly tricks to deliberately catch you out.

What's the time to command in Northern UK for a very experienced TR FO? A friend of mine has had enough of his current gig and quite facies the 5/4 pattern.

Sorry if I’m being dim and have missed the point but your phone has a silent mode. On an iPhone it’s called Do Not Disturb. Just turn that on when you go to bed and off at 0700, in this example. Pretty easy fix.

Yes it does, that wasn't quite the point though. The point is they actively play not so ethical tricks to get you into doing things you shouldn't be asked to do. If you happen to log on to check your roster before going to bed and notice they've assigned you a duty the following morning that starts before your standby was even supposed to start - tough luck, they've "caught" you. They can see when when you've opened your roster etc.

This isn’t the case though. Part A has the FTLs and associated policies in black and white. Stick to them and you’re covered. Anything after 30 mins post duty till the start of the next duty you are not obliged to answer. Yes they will try but you don’t need to answer. Been in this situation a few times and never had any issues?

People (not necessarily yourself) also seem to think you need to set alarms on an early standby to wake up and check if they’ve been put on a duty…no they will call you if you’re needed.

Last time I stood my ground, the fact it was against the OM A was ignored and I got a phone call from a management pilot which focused on why I was refusing to cooperate with delivering the operation.

I know I am not the only FO who has had this experience. One guy showed me screenshots where he had been called at 4:50AM for a 7AM standby. There was also a post recently on the intranet querying all the texts in the middle of the night that seem to disturb quite a lot of people. Put it on silent sounds simple but not everyone can put their phone on silent. Some have urgent calls they need to be able to receive etc.

Can easily mute a particular contact on both Apple and Android.

Very single issue view. Pilot discretion is also there to reduce the max FDP (inop APU in summer for example), increase rest times, reduce report times. And yes, sometimes to safely complete a duty in unforeseen circumstances.

Best advice from my time was to have a separate work phone and switch it off the moment you leave the crew room until the start of your next duty. Any old brick will do. My base captain did try to call me in for a meeting to ask why I wasn’t answering his calls on my days off, but I missed that call too.

Around half of my initial Ryanair course left for new pastures and half stayed to do their commands after 3-4 years of RHS. I don’t know any that regret their decision. It’s a toxic company but there’s plenty of small bases away from the glare of Dublin in some prettier parts of the continent that you can probably make a good life for yourself. Until they close that base, obviously.

well sir, thanks for that statement, a lot of food for thought, also would like to thanks everyone else for their opinion.

Well, to compare, the company that I currently work now it’s a nice place, not the best but far from being the worst.
The thing is, it’s in a ****ty country (that narrows to 100% of countries in South America 😂) and getting into Europe would be something to think about, however it isn’t just swapping badges, talking about a life changing move for me and my family, and doing this huge step into a place with so many backlash, at least from what I’ve been reading around.


the turn over being so high means something, right?!


by the way, so far I know, would be Raynair DAC contract with UK basement, still no idea which airport

If they like to play then… play it back :)

Most of the new gen phones are nowadays dual sim capable. Just tell them you changed phone number.
Use the do not disturb function and allow calls from people you decide.
At checkout from duty take a screenshot of your next duty, say a standby at 7am, so you don’t have to log in again in case you have a doubt if it was a 7 or a 6am or whatever start time.

Most probably Stansted which is near London.

Have a look on Rightmove.com and search house prices near Bishops Stortford, or within a 30 mile radius of the airport and you might be in for a shock. Romford might be cheaper, but for a reason.