Stan,

I completely understand where you are coming from. Granted we should not have to pay for a type rating, we should be able to have a steady income, and all that without getting into debt first.

But the problem is when it comes to principles versus reality, reality usually wins. And unfortunately for me, ending the sixth year of my young carreer, and many other young pilots this is/was the reality when we got into aviation.

Coming from a small country with no national carrier. Ryanair was the best option at that time. Frankly speaking, it was the only option. So I, and along with me many others, swallowed the bitter pill. Because any job and thus any income still beats sitting around at home with no income at all.

Spandex,

You're right in your convictions. And believe you me I wish our industry still worked the way you describe it. But as you say there's no point living in the past.

Not pointing this comment at you specifically Spandex. But how fair is it really to pick on people trying to make the best of a situation that isn't even of their own making. A lot of older pilots love to reminisce about the "old" days. Well, they were there at the very beginning when the rock started rolling down the hill. When I look at the situation now, I can only conclude they did nothing at all to stop it early on.

edit: The reason why I'm still working for Ryanair is because I'm one of the lucky few who managed to secure a base position within driving distance of my actual home. I understand my situation is the exception rather than the rule, and thus all the comments that I make should be viewed in that light.

-15, yes I know, like I've said before I'm not Ryanair bashing. I'm not taking up an anti Ryanair stance. We just happen to be having this discussion on a Ryanair thread.

Yes it would be great if nobody had to pay for a job but it's the very fact that people do pay for a job which is allowing this sort of con to flourish!

The next airline to take it on board will do so having seen the amount of bright, young pilots banging on O'Leary's do with their thirty grand.

Etcetera...

Spandex Masher, et al.,

I have previously given that question a great deal of thinking when it comes to principle vs. reality. In my point of view, no, I would not pay for another type rating, at least not up front, perhaps in the form of a training bond.

With 500 and some hours mainly SE prop, if I was in charge of recruiting, I cannot say that I would have hired myself even, spent tens of thousands of EUR/GBP to train myself and then see how I would have turned out. With a couple or thousands of hours on the 737, good sim sessions and line checks, I believe that I have proven that I´m up for the challenge. And since I now meet the requirement for airlines that do not charge directly for a type rating, I do not see the need for future type rating costs. Some draw the line between initial training and a TR. I have drawn the line after my first TR.

Lospilotos, you'll have to humour me now.

The future, a question (some parallels with todays industry):

- No airline is recruiting pilots with your TR, they sold all the TRs they can and are now bloated with pilots most of whom are on standby.

- The rot has set in and every other airline in existence now requires that you pay for a TR, it is the only way in the door. Hell, why not? We make more money that way.

- You can't stay where you are because you too are on twelve months of solid standby and are not getting any cash in the bank.

What do you do?

- Leave the industry - I ain't paying for another TR - don't look back at your lost 'investment'.
- Stay where you are, untenable, more lost investment.
- Pay for another TR, it's the only way in, more 'investment' to lose.

Ok, I am exaggerating what I think will happen but you can't deny that it could/will happen if the current trend remains unchecked.

Sorry to hear about the demise in your pay and conditions . I left the company because people like yourself prostituted yourself to the company resulting in my terms and conditions being hacked .I have no regrets and I am glad I made the move,::D:D

Spandex,

I think your looking at this from the wrong end, consider the new guys who have very little leverage entering this industry. It should really be the collective on the other side that are protecting the industry from employing such practises. As a workforce they can have a say if they choose to do so, such as the BMI/EZY guys when that dreadful p2f scheme was implemented. Those guys put a stop to that. If they hadn't then who knows, but I suspect the situation for guys looking for employment would be worse.

The older ones that complain about this are generally the ones that should have been doing something instead of nothing when airlines were testing the waters. Just my opinion and I had to pay for my type as well. I don't regret it as I was able to break into this industry. Will I consider paying a type again? I very much doubt it. I've already turned down a possible position based on that very requirement. Citing those reasons.

Now, listen carefully: STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought we were talking about standby periods, which are unpaid.

Buying a TR and such practices should not be linked. And I must say that I've been fortunate enough to never pay for a rating.

RYR take advantage of people on BRK contracts. I sadly believe that paying for a rating is here to stay. After all, it's been going on for 20 years.

What's new is that people buy a rating on the basis of a ZERO hours contract and then sit around waiting for the phone to ring in the winter months. Lunacy.

Go skiing. Oops, can't do that, spent the cash........

..... Don't do it!!! Keep the money in the bank.

As LSM says, there is a surplus of qualified B737 FO's available.

(Before anyone points it out, I'm a Captain for an Eastern European pink A320 airline. But ALL our employees AND contractors have a basic wage. No flying? FO: 2000€ a month. Captain: 4000€ a month. However, ALL our pilots do at least 50 hours a month even in November. Reality is that everyone still has an income.)

Well lets just look at it from both sides.

Yes, I agree, those who could have tried to prevent it should have done. No doubt about that in my mind.

Those that actually paid for it shouldn't have done.

Either of those actions would have prevented the blooming of the rot. Fair enough?

Now, on the first point, what are the collective doing about it these days? The collective that counts some who paid for a TR amongst it's numbers. Diddly squat, that's what. Why?

You see, it's a very cynical point of view to claim that we should have done something to prevent it when you are not doing anything to stop it continuing now!

Spandex,

You can't say those examples have equal responsibility. The rot should've been stopped by the workforce the very moment it began. That's where the true responsibility lies.

You seem to be happy to ignore the fact that people coming out of training, having paid for their initial training as well, need to have an income. Uncertain, limited or few hours are still hours. Like I said before, people do what they need to do in order to survive. Anything is better than sitting at home, with no income at all, on basis of principle.

If anything is cynical, it's blaming the current youngest generation of pilots for problems the older generation could've prevented in the first place. But because they didn't, by now those practices have spread wide and far. If you ask me, should Ryanair go bankrupt tomorrow, any number of other airlines would try exactly the same tactics.

Now if the Irish government would grow some f'ing balls and actually force union recognition onto Ryanair, along with a serious investigation into the social dumping that is Brookfield... Things might actually change a bit.

As for the collective you talk about Spandex. Things have actually been tried. About 5 years ago there was the famous "uprising" of the Dublin pilots, who at the time were unhappy with their T&C's. If I remember correctly they actually took Ryanair to court. The result was zero. Except for the fact that nearly none of the FO's involved made it to captain, and of the captains involved practically all have disappeared from the company.

The best an individual can do is leave. Something which I plan to do myself if I get a better deal somewhere. Will I be bitter towards the guy who takes my place? No. because I know what position he is in and what he needs to endure. So I won't blame him for keeping the Ryanair machine going. Because he, like me and all my friend, does what he needs to do.

With due respect Spandex, as I believe you're certainly worthy of that even based on your seniority in the industry alone, I don't think you'll ever fully get what I'm saying. Because you've never been in the situation many youngsters find themselves in today. I'm not sure you're able to fully relate.

I'm not attacking you personally with that by the way.

D105
 

D105,

With due respect to you and everyone else, no-one should "find themselves" in £100,000 debt in order to attain a job.

Actually, it's not even a job. It's a zero hours contract. Worthless. Less than worthless in fact. It's lunacy.

Temporary Christmas shelf stackers are quite possibly making more, bearing in mind lack of debt servicing, in a shop this year than some BRK crew.

Until people realise this, the game is up.

Nothing personal taken, or given.

Believe me I understand their position. I also understand how that position has been literally forced upon them.

We can argue all day about who is to blame for this situation, the bottom line is that everyone is to blame. Those who brought these schemes into being, those who did nothing to stop them happening (although you indicate that efforts to stop them have since failed) and those that partook in them.

I'm not talking about an action against an individual airline as you've mentioned but a complete cessation of these pathetic contracts and deals.

They only exist now because they keep getting fed. Yes they should have been stopped before they started but that isn't the only way to skin a cat. Chop it's head off, now!

speaking of the good roster, I heard our new bases in the canaries are 5/2 - 5/3, so our good roster is slowly being killed.

McBruce, seriously, down to 5/2? WTF. The canaries are a serious commute back to the UK, already unworkable on a 5/3, if every other week is going to be a 5/2 this is going to reinforce saying "no" to the command upgrade which is what FR are relying on to keep themselves with sufficient captains. Its going to be an interesting summer season

That cant be right, if its 5/2 5/3 and your doing routes out of there that are 3-4 hour sectors you will go out of hours very quickly, or have tons on standbys.

Tenerife does sound appealing, and I mean to live there and not commute, could go home the odd time on the 5/3 by swapping a day so making it 5/4 but really just base there full time.

F14. "Good roster, sleeping in your own bed every night." I think you'll find that many crews do not live where they work and thus are not in their own bed every night. From reading threads over the past year it would seem that many spend their 'days off' commuting to get to their own bed for only 2 or even 1 night. It's been told that some F/O's have forgone command to stay at home rather than be posted to the ends of Europe on 5/3 and precipitate family breakdowns. It's also been reported that base swaps to be at home for both parties is mostly rejected. I'm sure the 'own bed' propoganda covers only 50% at most. Perhaps those on the inside can correct me.
I still find it hard to understand the concept of being self-employed, not allowed to work for anyone else, no guarantee of work/income, having to give notice to leave and being compelled to be on duty for no pay. Extraordinary. Paying for your job is one thing; working for no pay is another entirely. And, how can you give notice to someone who does not employ and does not guarantee you work? Does RYR offer the same in return?

What is it with you lot? 10 pages worth of the pitfalls with the Brookfield contract within Ryanair. Same issues expressed around this time every year, each year they become more and more exacerbated. And everybody still argues about it.

1. No one moans in the summer when we are doing 80-90 hrs per month. If anything I hear people complaining that they are bollexed and can't get any time off!

2. No one moans when they first get taken on as a cadet, whizz through line training and fly their little asses off at the expense of more expensive FOs.

3. The UK and Irish operation has become a seasonal one at best. With high tax rates, stagnated growth, vast competition and the recession; I can't see it changing unfortunately. Yet what percentage of the airline is/wants to be based here?

4. The Brookfield Contract is here to stay. MOL is a regular Houdini and will magic his way out of anything to suit his purpose. The current Ryanair contract stands at €28000 basic and half sector pay for FOs. It would be a !!!!e side less if the powers that be turned round and told Ryanair to employ all their pilots directly. Actually, what you would probably see is around a quarter to a third of FOs being laid off completely and the rest being placed on seasonal contracts a la Jet2.

5. People now joining seem to have no expectation. I have mixed emotions on this one. For one I am glad that people have a sense of reality however a cadet that I spoke to just yesterday was only too prepared to be sent to any outpost whatsoever and perfectly accepted that he may be looking at a lengthy spell in the right hand seat. He was only 2 minutes in the company and he was admitting that he would probably be gone in 3 to 4 years anyway. Is this the type of candidate Ryanair now want? - I willing to bet so!

6. EMT is now a TRTO and has been for some time. Nice little business which will continue to do very well, even after the last 737-800 rolls out of Seattle, the growth ends and MOL heads for the hills after cashing in his remaining shares!

MugaBELLEW was in the STN crewroom on Tue before 6am pressing flesh. I asked him and he told me:-

1. All the new bases will be on Apr-Oct 5/4 roster and Nov-Mar 5/3 roster. That includes the Canaries. Apparently all places are filled now for the islands.

2. Limited leave all Dec 2010 due xmas ops. Very few on month off which will affect Dec hours. Many off in Jan on month off and unpaid leave which should help hours for all.

3. No more OCC courses. Anyone in FR knows where to call him in STN and most have his mobile number!

The other way round maybe?

Apr-Oct 5/4 roster and Nov-Mar 5/3 roster

The other way round maybe?

I think that is the way but don't forget that you will only be granted leave during winter months so in effect you'll be working on a 5/3 pretty much all the time. So that is our nice roster gone.

Did you forget to ask him about the new nice contract for the Canaries. Massive cuts for everyone, or did he fogot to mention that.

New Ryanair deal: crap roster + no money and not benefits whatsoever.

oh!! I think he also forgot to mention that soon all bases will follow.

RyanairpilotSTN - I hope that you said "thank you" personally for his nice memo. It maid me feel all warm and cozy inside!

I've been offered ACE base, but waiting to see contract before answering....lets see what happens.

Thought you were a true company man Callsign! I detected sarcasm!:}

Correct me if I'm wrong.
New hire FO's end up 100k € in debt after paying for TR (line training too?).
They pay for the hotel during training and uniform. Then, they're based in
the ends of Europe on stand by all the time. No fly no money. No crew meals. Water?
I think you guys need to see a psychiatrist, or you have no respect for yourselves.
You guys are hurting yourselves now and in the long run, and the profession, too.

Good luck.

beachbumflyer something you didn't quite get right. Type rating is 30k, and while expensive, if people are in 100k debt 70k (unless they did integrated and were 100k debt prior to paying for type) odd is due to FATPL and people remain in this debt even if they get BA, EJ, Flybe etc etc.....

To get into BA or EJ as a cadet you need to go via an integrated school or CTC (which may now be integrated). These FATPL courses are in the region of 100k alone when all said and done, and if you get a free (bonded) type rating, money spent by the cadet for FATPL with a type is 100k either way!

Forget about a few hundred bucks for uniform or you're own water now, the cost from zero to bum in right seat whether you pay for type rating or not is probably the same!

Not the best company in the world, who's arguing that, but can't argue it's not a bad start! Especially for me as I started in 2008 - to get 2000 on type during recession wasn't too shabby I thought!

The cost to the right hand seat is most definately NOT the same. I did my training from start to MEIR for about £20k-£25k (which was all my own money, not debt - as I saved up for many years), whilst still in my old career and I didn't walk away from that career until I had a job offer. (a job, not some micky mouse zero hour contract). Yes I had to pay for my rating, as unfortunately most do these days but that was another £15k and it was based on a real job with a real salary, which I had a contract for, in writing.

People need to get a bit of self respect and actually plan ahead. Someone in a previous post mentioned 'finding yourself 100k in debt'. Unbelievable, nobody FINDS THEMSELVES 100k in debt. This isn't like someone who lost a job in a recession due to no fault of their own. This is people who made a concious decision to do all the training without thinking through the consequences. If you can't afford to service the debt then you shouldn't have taken it on!
I agree that then having had a dawning reallisation (which people should have had BEFORE committing to all the debt) then maybe the ryanair thing looks better than nothing - however I still can't see that. A further 30k of debt for what? certainly this brookfield contract thing isn't a job, theres no guaranteed income, and even more cost as most people (juding by this thread) are incurring living costs way way away from home.
Unlike some I don't take solace in others misfortune, but really, if you are up to ears in debt and not earning anything whilst paying for accomodation in the butt end of europe and want to blame someone for the situation, then look in a mirror. You knew what you were signing when you paid the money.

I suspect at some point the irish government will grow some plums (or be given some by its new european paymasters) and put a stop to all this anyway. Certainly in the UK IR35 would kill all this, and I'm pretty sure that brookfield would be borderline at best under UK employment and contract law. Minimum wage would also be a consideration in the UK too.

757 you are quite correct in most of what you say, I certainly don't deny a lot of what you said.

What isn't correct mind, is the idea that every FO in RYR alone is in 100k debt.

Like you I worked full time at the CAA as is happens studying for my licences etc and finished with a FATPL with MCC owing 8k. Bearing in mind my situation where I had a good steady job anyway, and the fact I'd had to go modular to be suit my needs, of course the likes of BA and any other airline that paid and/or bonded me wouldn't have been interested as I'd not been down the integrated or CTC route.

Ryanair was my first interview, and by paying £25k for my type, I owed £33k ish with a bum on the right seat.

757 - My point on my previous post is accurate though, for people studying full time taking out a loan for full training etc.

For approx 100k you can:

Go modular and pay for a type rating (and have change for sure)
Go integrated and get lucky enough to not pay for one
Worst case- go integrated and pay for one - which lots have done.

I think perhaps we're arguing the same point, if you chose your school (s) wisely going modular and end up paying for a type, it's actually cheaper then having gone integrated in the hope you end up with BA etc...Definitely was for me no question.

Back to my initial statement directed at beachbum, not everyone in RYR is 100k in debt, and not everyone's mummy or daddy paid for their shinny jet rating!

To be fair, I think December has been particularly bad for standbys as not many people have annual leave or their month off now. I don't know any FOs in my base with annual leave or their month off in December. However in January, February and March plenty of us guys have time off. For some reason they seem terrified of handing out leave around Christmas and New Year- I don't know why, it's not like people are going to skive off leaving not enough crew to operate. Perhaps it's just the 19th century "Scrooge" mentality they have in Dublin towards their staff?

Myself, I have all of my annual leave and my BRK month off in Jan-March. This is a little worrying as I've not flown much this month. However I knew this was probably going to happen as it has for the last 3 years, so it's my own stupid fault for not saving up over the summer when I blew all my money on women, fast cars and shoes. Ah well, I guess it will only be the one skiing holiday for me this winter, but I've only myself to blame for that!

I just ploughed through the last 10 pages of this 'argument', which is no mean feat with my appalling internet connection. Some of it was interesting and enlightening; the usual 'only dumb guys pay for type ratings' debate less so.

I remember someone suggesting that the Ryanair rostering system is designed to man all flights at the lowest possible cost to the company. Is that right? Who told you that? Everyone in my base, BC included, reckons the current system is costing FR a small fortune because so many people are arriving from out of base while based pilots sit idly on standby.

As for my personal experience of working for FR, it's a mixed bag of good and bad. Overall, I'm happy to be employed doing the job I should have started in my twenties, rather than my thirties. But let nobody think that you earn a good living at FR. Pay and conditions are terrible. I don't mind buying my lunch or my uniform, that's petty cash. What annoys me is lack of pension etc.

As for hours, I appreciate there's a good variation between FOs in terms of hours, but my situation is 'okay'. I use the word carefully. I should just about scrape 700 logged hours for a 12 month calendar year. I have already had a winter month 'off BRK' and I've got more time off to contend with before the winter is over. I expect the spring and summer to bring some good news, but last year none of the 'bumper' months brought in over 75 hours, so I shall temper my optimism. with a good dose of reality. In my experience, even a good 'rostered' month tends to degenerate into 2 standbys a week once each new week is finalised.

I decided to join FR despite my misgivings over the management style because of the tales of 900 hours, advice from many pilots at other Airlines and my exhaustion of other options. The 25% shortfall of pay isn't the end of the world in a recession - I'd rather be employed - but it does severely dent my desire to build a career at a company in which the management treat the staff with utter contempt.

Low(er) pay, non-existent benefits, idiotic and inconsiderate rostering and basing decision gives me more stress than the joy of the day to day job can ever hope to counter. The sad thing is that the issues that upset me about FR could be remedied at no expense to the company, but it chooses to operate an unhappy ship out of sheer spite. Meanwhile the company sits on more money than it can hope to spend. Tragic.

Just my humble opinion.

MH152



Edited to apologise for the rant.

So, how much longer you FR pilots are going to put up with this?
If you all want you could change a lot of things.

Rostering works through mysterious ways. I have it from PB himself that rostering attempts to keep all pilots within 5% of each other. One of the reasons why it sometimes seems like base pilots are on constant standby and out of base pilots come and take hours away from the based folks.

Haven't done less than 820 hours either as FO or Captain at a central EU base. Explain that?

Again. Ryanair is a company for the young folk. Get in, do a command if you can or want and get out by the time you're 25. There's 40 years of your career left to spend with a major airline if you can get it.

Plus, the RYR experience does count for something. Haven't seen any of the big airlines do a winter operations with non-precisions into fields like Carcasonne, Bergerac, Larochelle, Gothenburg etc...

Get in as a cadet. Get your hours. Get out.
if you don't fall into that category, Ryanair is not a good option for you.

Lucky you! But it's simply not the case in the UK/Ireland.