Why have 140 Ryanair pilots left to join norwegian airline...

[gus-lopez]

I am having a night out with friends in Frankfurt next month... £55 for 2 of us return. I cant get a night out in my village for that.

But you won't be in Frankfurt ,you will be in Frankfurt am Hahn ,an old US base some 120kms from Frankfurt city & accessed only by cab or an hourly bus service unless you hire a car. It should really be called
" Nearer Luxembourg". Weisbaden & Mainz are closer.

With respect to compensation, I have already completed and submitted the form I was directed to by Ryanair. They have acknowledged receipt of my claim for compensation and I have a copy of that record. As the distance between Stansted & Prague is less than 1500 Kilometres I will only be entitled to 250 Euros as the flight was cancelled more than 3 hours and less than 2 weeks before departure. They also cancelled the return flight too. So 2 flights, 2 passengers equals 4 x 250 = 1000 euros compensation. Pays for our hotel and some fine dining to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. AND, (and it's a big and) I have been in touch with my MP and I have a letter him stating he will only be too happy to take issue with Ryanair on my behalf if they let me down on compensation.

Yes because of the scale of the problem & the fact that the regulators in more than one country are kicking up they have no option other than to address the problem as it should be done unlike how they usually treat individually cancelled flights .

I thought the pilots were effectively directors of small companies as I heard on TV.
If this is the case they wouldn't have contracts I wouldn't have thought.



Not everyone wants a free paper as they get on the plane, cheaper flights allow some to fly that wouldn't normally do so.
As they say ya pays ya money.....

They are & under UK hmrc regulations illegally working for one company only. Many under investigation.

Not slave labour no, but taking advantage yes.

Most Ryanair pilots and other low cost carrier pilots will have shelled out tens of thousands to acquire their licences and type approvals. Ryanair etc wont have contributed a penny towards that. They will in return receive one of the worst deals in the industry, many effectively on zero hours self employed status where the airline will push to the boundary the flying hours they can squeeze out of them during the seasonal months and potentially little or no income out of those months. Pay I believe for first officers is around the £15,000 pa level though I stand to be corrected on that.

So when you fly these carriers, your £6 buys you two pilots probably with minimal experience, pushed to the legal limits of their flying hours, doing a mentally intensive, highly technical and highly skilled job where a mistake can kill you and all your passengers and where you have to requalify every six months, at your cost. Fail that 6 monthly sim and no flying and no income until you resit and pass. How many of us would think this is a good screw?
Anyone of several of what we would call minor medical problems and that license is suspended or possibly lost for good.

Still think that £6 is a good deal and they are 'on a good screw'?

Ryanair and the others only function at all because they know there are lots of youngsters desperate to fly so they put up with the conditions to build enough hours on type to make them attractive to the major carriers or anyone who will pay a £5 more. They hold a large 'pool' of pilots under these contracts that can be drawn on whenever they need, I believe in Ryanair's case they have a pool larger than that of BA.

Ohh and those cabin staff, the ones who get their low wages docked if they don't sell a certain number of scratch cards and bottles of perfume per shift, and are still expected to smile and cater for your every need?

What @Robin McHood left out is that they are also flying you whilst many are under the stress of tax investigations by the UK & Eire authorities due to working illegally for one company only. Many have been asked to repay huge amounts of tax.

Unfortunately it is the individuals that , having been forced to be "employed" via the "self-employed" route via some standalone associate companies of Ryanair, they are hung out to dry via the tax authorities leaving the culprits untouched.

Wow
You’ve got it bad, get well soon

Many including me have. Absolute scum of a company. I never even used to pick up or return to the airport anyone using them.

 

[Dazzles]

But you won't be in Frankfurt ,you will be in Frankfurt am Hahn ,an old US base some 120kms from Frankfurt city & accessed only by cab or an hourly bus service unless you hire a car. It should really be called
" Nearer Luxembourg". Weisbaden & Mainz are closer.

 

[Baileysbus]

No great axe to grind as a user of Ryanair. The few times I have used them, we got there on time and all went well. However, it's worth spending time listening to this clip which might at least partly explain why Ryanair are losing pilots. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....i/furious-ryanair-pilot-calls-lbc-on-working/
Worth sticking to the end if you have the time

 

[buttons]

No great axe to grind as a user of Ryanair. The few times I have used them, we got there on time and all went well. However, it's worth spending time listening to this clip which might at least partly explain why Ryanair are losing pilots. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....i/furious-ryanair-pilot-calls-lbc-on-working/
Worth sticking to the end if you have the time

No need, I heard it live on LBC some time ago....

 

[PhilG]

But you won't be in Frankfurt ,you will be in Frankfurt am Hahn ,an old US base some 120kms from Frankfurt city & accessed only by cab or an hourly bus service unless you hire a car. It should really be called
" Nearer Luxembourg". Weisbaden & Mainz are closer.

But i always rent a car , and while its 'not Frankfurt' , most of the time i dont want to go to Frankfurt ,just that area, we fly their to get to races in Schaffhiem,and St Wendel, and once Freiburg, so it gets us close.

Berlin Schoenefeld is 20 mins drive from the city , and Leipzig is good too.

I dont want to fly into a big city, pay twice as much for my rental car ,3 times the hotel price,and get all the traffic, so its all good.

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[Robin McHood]

Wow
You’ve got it bad, get well soon

No, I haven't got anything bad. I just know something of the reality of low cost airline employment. I have four commercial airline pilots in my family, with tens of thousands of flying hours between them. None of them would set foot on a Ryanair flight. If that's what they think then I'm happy to be guided by their professional experience

 

[Camdoon]

Pilots being "forced" by Ryanair to do things. Ryanair having more pilots than BA - it has more planes. Being asked to repay tax - they presumably did not pay tax in the first place (and presumably are under more of a compunction to pay this than work for Ryanair).
The wife still works, so I drive to Spain and pick her up from Barcelona (Girona) airport. She does not require any food or drink, no luggage/baggage requirement, no special seating requirement. They are also punctual which is an added bonus. Girona is infinitely easier to collect someone from, being smaller, not in the centre of Barcelona and has only one terminal where even a motorhome can pick up and drop off.
Ryanair meets our requirements and our offspring who have similar requirements, during the summer.

 

[jongood]

Apart from my recent experience, a big issue I have with Ryanair is that they drive prices down too much and drive reasonable airlines out.

For example, last time I looked trying to get a direct flight at an acceptable time from Midlands/NW to Malaga was impossible.

I agree that I dont need a paper and a 'free' meal but I would happily pay fro a midddle ground between grinding budget and expensive that didnt require being at the airport at 0600. atm the crappy service and times puts me off flying.

 

[PhilG]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, RyanAir allows me to do things I would not normally be in a position to do, so I use them, but I refuse to use Amazon, or any of the other non tax paying global companies, choosing to buy locally and support business that keeps jobs here.

 

[Camdoon]

Apart from my recent experience, a big issue I have with Ryanair is that they drive prices down too much and drive reasonable airlines out.

For example, last time I looked trying to get a direct flight at an acceptable time from Midlands/NW to Malaga was impossible.

I agree that I dont need a paper and a 'free' meal but I would happily pay fro a midddle ground between grinding budget and expensive that didnt require being at the airport at 0600. atm the crappy service and times puts me off flying.

But what is the middle ground? I just went to Ryanair's website and plucked a random trip from Leeds to Corfu. You can pay £43.99 for no frills or £109.86 for

60 day check-in
20kg check-in bag
Priority Boarding
Reserved standard seat
Flexible tickets
Optional airport check-in
Fast Track

None of these are required for my families needs on a 2 hour flight. £66 extra.
People vote with their bottoms.
At Stansted it is Jet2 who have the poorer slots but the price/convenience of getting to the airport is one factor in the total equation.

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[jongood]

But what is the middle ground? I just went to Ryanair's website and plucked a random trip from Leeds to Corfu. You can pay £43.99 for no frills or £109.86 for

60 day check-in
20kg check-in bag
Priority Boarding
Reserved standard seat
Flexible tickets
Optional airport check-in
Fast Track

None of these are required for my families needs on a 2 hour flight. £66 extra.
People vote with their bottoms.
At Stansted it is Jet2 who have the poorer slots but the price/convenience of getting to the airport is one factor in the total equation.

Its not about the extras its about the flight times and the customer experience for me. Some of the greek island flights are at awful times IMO

 

[Camdoon]

Its not about the extras its about the flight times and the customer experience for me. Some of the greek island flights are at awful times IMO

The flight slots are not always dependant on the airline, I am sure they would all want the best slots and would all know what these times were. The biggest value Monarch has as an airline is its landing slots. At Stansted I am sure Jet2 would like some of Ryanair's flight slots. I am not sure what part of the customer experience you want to pay extra for.

 

[gus-lopez]

Pilots being "forced" by Ryanair to do things. Ryanair having more pilots than BA - it has more planes. Being asked to repay tax - they presumably did not pay tax in the first place (and presumably are under more of a compunction to pay this than work for Ryanair).
The wife still works, so I drive to Spain and pick her up from Barcelona (Girona) airport. She does not require any food or drink, no luggage/baggage requirement, no special seating requirement. They are also punctual which is an added bonus. Girona is infinitely easier to collect someone from, being smaller, not in the centre of Barcelona and has only one terminal where even a motorhome can pick up and drop off.
Ryanair meets our requirements and our offspring who have similar requirements, during the summer.

They are only 'ontime' as they build in large amounts ,in excess of journey requirements. If you have ongoing connections ,like my wife, you have to pay for allocated seat (right at front so you can be off & gone) & also priority boarding.
Of my wifes Thursday evening flights due to arrive at Alicante since November 2015 only one has actually turned up on time , due to the French ATC ongoing weekly dispute/strikes ,with an hour late being like winning the lottery & normal arrival is 5 minutes under the 3 hour compensation limit.

 

[buttons]

Its not about the extras its about the flight times and the customer experience for me. Some of the greek island flights are at awful times IMO

Couldn't agree more, landing in the small hours is a big no no for me.. I even changed destinations when booking a holiday recently. Intended to holiday in Cyprus but couldn't get a day flight so booked for Portugal instead. 9am out and 3pm arrive back. Hope Portugal lives up to my love of Cyprus.....

 

[PhilG]

For me , the flight times are great because I don't waste a day for a 1 hour flight , leave work at 4 , airport for 6 , express security and onto plane for 7.30, land, walk to hotel ( at Hahn its 30m) , then following morning pick up car and go , then return sunday evening , for 10pm flight back. saves me 2 days , but I am a frequent flier (by normal standards, as I don't fly for work ) , and I have it all planned for each place I fly to regularly. In the 70 or so flights I have had in the last 5 seasons, I think we have been delayed more than an hour once, and never had a cancellation.

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[Camdoon]

They are only 'ontime' as they build in large amounts ,in excess of journey requirements. If you have ongoing connections ,like my wife, you have to pay for allocated seat (right at front so you can be off & gone) & also priority boarding.
Of my wifes Thursday evening flights due to arrive at Alicante since November 2015 only one has actually turned up on time , due to the French ATC ongoing weekly dispute/strikes ,with an hour late being like winning the lottery & normal arrival is 5 minutes under the 3 hour compensation limit.

You can hardly decry an airline if it is an issue with French ATC. As for excess time - that is something the railways and airports do as well. In the 1980's, Boston airport used to have a problem with people complaining that they had to wait for their luggage so they made passengers walk round half the airport to reach the luggage hall. End of problem. ATM cash dispensers work at the slowest speed possible so that if the link is slow people do not start pushing spurious buttons. Consistency of expectation being more important than speed. It is called Nudge these days.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41549533

 

[jongood]

Co-incidentally I was talking to an easy jet pilot yesterday and Ryanair came up. I ventured the opinion that the Monarch failure had come at a great time for them. he replied - yes but none of them will want to work for them (ryanair)