Anyone know SO salaries for a Spanish contract? Is the 16k on PPJN accurate (seems absurdly low)? How likely is it to be based there upon joining?

Absolute nonsense Dirk. I declined to use discretion twice last summer and it was accepted without any question.

As mentioned, Dirk does not work for Ryanair. He would be better sticking to easyjet or wizz discussions.

Absolute nonsense. Guys and girls refuse discretion every single day of the week, because they can.
Do us all a favour and cut out the uniformed drivel.

Fortunately, fatigue is subjective and the airline don’t get to decide what is and isn’t fatiguing

What is fatiguing for one, is not so for the other.

and so it should...

There really is some total tosh written here, Ive returned to work after a three months away due being fatigued (medical revoked ) caused by many things, some external, some work related, possible bad virus that showed up in blood tests . The company could not have done more to help me the only requirement as normal to keep getting paid is the required sickness note from my GP one month at time. Not one phone call asking when I was going to return however as a normal curtesy I kept the base manger updated.
I have also never been aware of any captain being called to Dublin for not using discretion , Keeping Operations up to date is important. I did not use discretion last year and it was a non event, COMMUNICATION with others is important.

And there is a lot of truths written here as well.

Did my time and yeah the only benefit at RYR is the company will be around until the end of time. 5 on 4 off if you like that. For me it was total crap as if you did need to change it was impossible.

Calling you on days off at 9am when you only got in the door at 4am for overtime? Check

Asked to call in everyday to update them when I was sick? Check

Crew member had to go to Dublin for tea and biscuits for not flying cost index enough. Check

Mate of mine asked to be based at home or even in the country he’s from after line training to help with his Mrs who had just given birth. Sent to Poland for a year with no direct flights to where he’s from. Check
Ps Others on course after ours got bases he wanted.

Lovely 2 sector early duty. Landing and ops call to say yeah got 2 more sectors for you. 6 hours later trudge back to the car. Check

Many many other experiences with management others have told me about.

Training great. Aircraft great. Do a few years and move on.
Otherwise you get sucked into left seat blah blah and it’s harder to move on to a better airline (which is most others).

The most interesting is the "blah blah" part. Other than than just sour grapes

Oh forgot to add the time I went to discretion twice on a five day block. Landing back at base at 4.30am on day 5 which is basically day 6 then. Asked for a day off back but laughed at.

Not really sour grapes at all.

I had heard/read all the rumours and applied anyway. Surely they can’t be that bad.
No they can and worse.

Gave me motivation to move on sharpish though.

You poor thing, how could they do all this to you? Hope you have recovered now

And the award for the most abrasive and most useless tool goes to…

For sure, but if you have worked 1 day of earlies, taken VTO (time off) for the next 4 days, get your 4 days off, then work 1 day of lates and call fatigued. Well the company are going to investigate why and that work record will not help your case. They will ask if there's much going on in your personal life to cause it. If the answer is no, well, good luck.

That's a very extreme example i know, but they do investigate the context of the report. In all the cases i know (which were genuine), they just got assigned extra time off. No drama.

When were you in Ryanair? I'm nearly certain there's a rule now that landing after 4AM generates a day off in lieu. It was in a notice a while back after much complaining.

2 years here, have had 2 calls asking to work a day off, both times at midday.

You submit your sickness via EFB, note what is wrong and tap the days you need off. If you get a doctors cert you email that too. Never been called nor had to call anyone about being sick, and believe me I've had my fair share of sick days.

Captains laugh about these automated Cost Index letters, one showed me over 50 on his ipad. Never seen nor heard of anyone going to Dublin over it. Maastricht assign you .79 and you'll get one. They'd need an entire department and supermarket load of biscuits if every letter was a meeting. Are you sure there is not more to this story??

The base at joining is rarely what you want I agree. I had to do 2 stints in bases I didn't want whilst on the list for what I wanted. I couldn't complain because they asked ib my interview was I happy to be based anywhere in the network.

The 5 days on can be tough, very tough. The 4 days off are nearly just recovery. Personally I think the company is overcrewed of late. Evidenced by the exponential increase in VTO availability.

I'd agree with all of that except this - I've done pretty much every sort of commercial aviation, and more than any other type of operation, feel 100% on my days off, and even find 4 sector days not unduly knackering (a short commute back to your home and bed is key) - just bash out the sectors and forget about it. PS can you confirm it's 4am. I though it was 6am? Very rare I've been delayed past about 1am anyway (maybe once a month, and later would bump off the following days work anyway)- I've never had such a normal sleep pattern in my career.
There are other fringe improvements -IT is brilliant, both operationally and love the new ecrew features, plus paid parking seems to be creeping in, good day off payments, and other small stuff like that. I guess to bring in line with the competition, a better pension and health insurance wouldn't go amiss, and some sort of incentive plan, such as share options or profit share; which would automatically smooth the boom and bust of crewing levels when the industry waxes and wanes, as opposed to the delayed reaction to suddenly finding everyone has left when boom times come around.

Just double checked, it is 4AM. The latest I've landed was 2:40AM.

Regarding the tiredness of it all, it's definitely person to person, but 5 days of waking up at 3:30AM going to fly 11hr+ days (which have become the standard at my base) has me on my knees by the time the days off come. I live very local to the airport and I only seem to have time to eat, shower, get ready for the next day and then sleep. VTO is making things more manageable though. Granted not every block is like this, sometimes some short 2 sector days and a few standbys can leave you feeling like you don't even have a job!

True, it's very base, and commute dependant. The earliest I ever set my alarm is 0415, and on average, at 5am alarm on earlies.

This sounds more like that Line Training salary... think it bumps up a bit when you move to SO, I don't have figures for Spain though, I'm UK based.

Second officer is roughly 55.000 going up to about 79.000€ in Spain as an FO.

The other figures are clearly line training fees.