I think it's quite interesting how the attitude toward RYR has changed over recent years. Does no one hate MOL anymore? Has everyone forgotten the repugnant bye bye baby insignia emblazoned on the aircraft? Is PM the new MOL?

Are the above just superficial to the end choice? I'm not trying to be provocative, I'm genuinely interested. I know the RYR training is truly excellent, and for a cadet in the bizarre world of newly minted cadets demanding jets it is the place to go....but for other sorts?

The market is well....buoyant....but for how long. Wonder what odds bet Fred give for the next tits up and who....won't be long folks....

These days HR has much more of an input into the recruitment process than any old boys network / forces bias may have had in the past.

I’m very pleased to hear this. As we all know, those HR professionals are highly knowledgeable on pilot selection and craft fairs.
I was afraid of an“old-boys network” because for many years I have lived with the agony of my fast-jet pilot applications being rejected by the RAF. I stopped applying after the realization that being an obese, cross-eyed, larger-loving, foul-mouthed, Australian lesbian, living in the bush, the odds were stacked against me. However, I was offered a non-flying commission with the RAF Regiment which I turned down in favor of moving to Sydney and becoming an intern in an adult book shop. Sadly, my publishing career never materialized, but I lost weight, fixed my eyes, stopped drinking and eventually achieved my goal of becoming a pilot.
Some things about me haven’t changed. I still love being surrounded by bush, so a job in the Northern Territories with Jet2 would be :mad: ideal.

DB, do you mean 'larger loving' or 'lager loving?' Both ideal pilot qualities I hasten to add...

Because judging by 5-10 year old info from BALPA versus uptodate info I've been given, it would seem the FR direct UK contracts seem to have got better thus why people are willing to stay. Much improvement still needed, especially at entry level.

I would hazard a guess that with no union at FR, pilots were forced to vote with their feet over the last decade, the effects of which were probably felt in the boardroom forcing FR's hand; they would never admit it though! However, those 'effects' are hard to quantify or confirm so it's purely speculation, conjecture and attempting to connect the dots on my part.

You hear incorrectly in my opinion. Many of the pilot management team are ex military, however the notion that as such they should be held in high esteem is nonsense. Their position alone means that people should respect them, the same as anyone in any business respects their peers. The management team certainly have never come across as an ex military team that have no time for you unless you were too.

+1 to what Johnny said.
Your backgrounds will be held in sufficient esteem if you can fly the damn thing.
The way bases are marching south these days might just suit Bondi.
Me, I'm holding out for Coffs Harbour.

Yes, but it's based on number of available seats and there are never enough!

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ....... That's just brought on my asthma....I'm off to the docs !.

Staff travel
 

A good way to get Phillip really really cross is to mention staff travel. He goes ballistiic.
I speak as one who has been roasted!

Deadpool
 

Staff travel scheme -

There are 2 options -

1) is a salary sacrifice scheme. It's quite complicated, but basically you pay for your holiday by monthly deduction from your salary which is taken before tax, thus giving you a tax break on that amount.

2) is as detailed before, based on load factors. Over the last year or so this has become completely unworkable, especially at peak times.

Believe me, there have been years and years of attempts made for improvements, whenever the crew council meet it is on the agenda, unfortunately it falls on deaf ears. A standby system has been suggested but is always thrown out for one reason or another.

"What did he say" - words to the effect of "why should I let you have a seat at a discount when somebody else will pay full fare".

Deadp
Don't forget at FR your probably also including crew seats whereas this is more difficult for a UK AOC

Yes offering a staff perk (such as staff travel) is a great for morale.
However the Phil way would seem to be, "all perks cancelled until morale improves"
Brilliant.
This is certainly not the way Herb K or Richard B run their excellent enterprises!

I'll add my 2 cents for what it's worth, as I am joining Jet2 from an airline with extensive staff travel benefits, for single guys or young couples I can understand the desire for it, but for guys with families who will most likely want to travel during peak times it's a fairly useless perk, as trying to get on an aircraft using staff travel during peak holiday times you can basically forget about it, and tbh the stress of trying to do it basically ruins part of your holiday.

I personally use it alot with my current airline as I have lived thousands of miles away from home for the past 6 years.. but as Jet2 offers me a base very close to my house I'll have very little use for it so am quite happy to give it up. As I spend half my life either on aircraft or in airports, I have very little desire in spending my days off playing staff travel roulette.

Maybe staff travel as in flight only isn't as useful for families, but Jet2 is pushing the holiday offering, so could perhaps be offering discounted holidays. My current lot offer up to £1700 off a holiday every year. It's small things like this, a bonus when the company does well, incremental pay scales, and some kind of share deal that would elevate Jet2 from a stepping stone to a career airline imho.

I agree with all of those points H44. Strikes me as it would be a big cost saving to them if they could retain most of their pilots also and wouldn't be hard to do.

Philip:
Richard:

That's it. Period!

Travel Weekly from August 4th this year
Is this the sort or excellent enterprise and staff care to which you refer?

H44 £1,700 may seem like a "small thing" to you, but multiply that by 2,500 staff and you have a £4 million + deduction from your balance sheet every year. Not exactly loose change in anyone's books.
Personally, I'd rather have the money and chose where I go, when I go and who I go with.

Sounds like something straight from the mouth of the factory owner! In fact ...why even pay the workers at all as it has a significant affect on the bottom line. Muppet.

Jet2 unions
 

If Phil gets cross at very idea of staff travel, mention unions and he self ignites! It is alleged that he ripped the BALPA lanyard from the neck of crew member!

The employment contract does state that ONLY Jet2 lanyards shall be worn.

Lanyards
 

Must be the new contracts.

I would say lack of staff travel or significant incentives to book through Jet2 holidays is a lost marketing opportunity.

If you asked for a show of hands in the crew room for those who have booked a Jet2 holiday or flight in the last 12 months it wold probably be less than 10%. There are two issues with this;

Your staff have no real idea about the product, especially on the holidays side, when friends, family and colleagues ask, knowing that you work for the company. They can't say what an amazing holiday they had with the company and upsell the brand.

It doesn't look very good when most your staff holiday with all the competition instead!

Lanyards - yeah why not. Corporate image springs to mind.
Yorkshire Pudd - Can't argue with that tbh.

There is no loss of license or private health care. J2 offer a discount with BUPA but its nothing special, in fact, If you enquire yourself, you can get a similar deal.

The current salary exchange (not a benefit so to speak) is only good if your fully employed and on the high tax band.

I think cooperating with the union, and listening to employees for what they would like, would go a long way. Of course the demands of the employees can not all be satisfied.

When compared with 5 years ago, FR is a different airline these days. From my experience, almost all those leaving having done so for basing/family reasons or due to a desire to fly longhaul, rather than the money.

No, worse. Plenty of threads on this issue elsewhere, which state that the FR take home after maximising own pension contributions averages at about £6k.

Nobody on here seems to know what a Jet2 Captain takes home.

I know what you're saying, but most Captains would find it very hard to take a pay cut to join Jet2. The difference between flying 700 and 800 hours a year is not great in terms of effort, and where there's an obvious reward in your bank account for the hard work, most would do it happily.

Really? Not much difference in term of benefits and less pay. For me, the stable 5/4 is worth at least £20k per annum because of its beneficial effect on family life. So, if working for FR involves a greater take home as well providing that huge inducement, Jet2 is a hard sell for me.

How much leave do you manage to get at times that are of any use to a family at Ryanair?

Eg, could I expect to get a period of leave over Christmas or New Year, a week at Feb 1/2 term, a week at Easter, 2 weeks in the July/August summer holidays and a week at October 1/2 term? Most years I can manage to get the vast majority of those, and maybe May 1/2 term too.

I haven't worked for Ryanair, and I suspect those here defending them haven't worked for Jet2. All I can base my opinions on are the feedback that many of those that have made the transition from FR to LS have detailed, and they are more than happy with their lot, I am also aware of some that moved from Jet2 to FR and are looking to return, despite the basing not really suiting them.

Lots of differing T's and C's, however I think the biggest thing that I have noticed people saying is the attitude that Jet2 have towards them, particularly when you are after a favour off Rostering, or trying to sort out a swap with Crewing.

Each to their own obviously..no where is perfect.

With respect to standbys (this said with the caveat that I'm based in my home base) I think it's hard to view a home standby day as a working day. I've had countless rostered in my 18 months here and in that time have been called out a total of 3 times. 2 hour call out so to be honest I just go about my daily life and just avoid the places where I know phone signal is poor. A few days flying rostered for Nov and 10+ standbys-which I virtually guarantee you will turn out to be days off for all intents and purposes. Still paid full salary though...pretty good quality of life all in all. Granted if you're one for hour building quickly there might be better options

For goodness sake guys. Horses for courses. Lets not get into the how high can you piss.:*

With regards to what Johnny said, Deadpool's on the same lines as me.

As I said, those leaving Ryanair for other airlines are 2000 hour FOs for whom long haul, big jets and hotels in Boston is the big draw. For those who enjoy hand-flying medium jets into interesting airports, before returning to their own bed with the lady who is still their wife, Ryanair holds few horrors.

I look at my roster for the next 30 days and it looks pretty good: 11 days flying, each with 2 sectors, 12 different routes, so not much repetition, 3 standbys and 1 training day. I'm back home mid afternoon on all bar one of the earlies and only have to leave for work mid afternoon for the lates. I will see my children every working day, plus for the entirety of each and every of the 15 days I'm not working.

The airports on long haul are still pretty interesting, Canarsie approach into JFK springs to mind, or the LDA into Haneda, or into Saporro on a clear day they just clear you to self position downwind to make a visual circuit to land, I'm on the jumbo and can hand fly as much or as little as I like, so not sure where that hand-flying comment comes from. Agree with the rest of your points though, after years of being jet lagged in hotels I'm very much looking forward to being home to my own bed each night.

You might find you're in a minority these days. Not many hand fly jumbos about. But in any case, there's little doubt that those who find flying the plane as the main draw to the career would find the greater frequency of shorter sectors to a larger variety of (often smaller) fields, more fun than longhaul.

How do you manage 12 different routes in 11 days without landing miles from your car?

Ahh I dunno, I have a friend who works at Cargolux flying the jumbo and they'll often disconnect at 20,000ft and hand fly all the way to landing. I can't say I have a huge amount of interest in hand flying if I'm being honest, lets face it we can all fly a departure and an approach, it isn't hard. And it had no influence on me joining Jet2, missing out on family moments and the chance to be at home is what I made the move for. Sitting around in a hotel room in the middle of the night (which is what I'm doing right now) gets old pretty quick!

Good spot Flap40! :-)

My mistake. The 12 routes included my flights yesterday, whereas the rest of the stats relate to the remainder of my month according to Rosterbuster.

Obviously, all the 2 sector days leave me back at my car.

DDobinpilot: Jet2 and FR etc are loco pax operators. Cargo operators don't count!

I can back up the above. I flew the jumbo and hand flew it freely. Where I am now you can hand fly if you wish. Just choose sensible moments the same as anywhere. It's whether you chose to though. Most jumbo Pilots have been flying long enough to get past the obsession with hand flying absolutely every approach just for selfish reasons and pick their moments. It's all about managing risk and after being awake half the night you use what little reserves you and your team mate at the front are left with in the best way. Just my observation.

Well I'm at a pax and cargo operator, either way I think most operators don't have set rules on when you have to engage the autopilot, might be wrong though.

Agree with Wireless, if it's a 3am departure where we are both tired departing out of an unfamiliar port, chances are I'll engage the autopilot earlier rather than later, and also take into account how busy the PM is, or if there is significant weather around I need to avoid in my opinion you really should be engaging the autopilot early. But I have no problem if the guy I'm flying with engages it early or later.