The latest from Ryanair

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Asimov

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Remember all the fuss made about my revelations last month that Ryanairs pilots were joining IALPA/BALPA?

Nonsense said the rabid O'Leary fans! Never! Never! You are making it all up to discredit our hero!

Seems that war is so imminent it has been bubbling under for a month and none of the papers have picked up on it.
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Oh dear...

Ryanair pilots shun O'Leary meetings

The relationship between Ryanair and its 600 pilots has reached a new low after hundreds of the airline's pilots boycotted information meetings hosted by chief executive Mr Michael O'Leary in London.

[broken link removed]

Ryanair pilots shun O'Leary meetings [broken link removed]

Low-cost airlines depend on loyalty [broken link removed]

Low-cost airlines depend on loyalty
By Henry Tricks
Published: August 21 2004 05:00 | Last updated: August 21 2004 05:00

As Michael O'Leary watched the tortured pay negotiations between British Airways and its unions this week, he was reminded why he has no truck with unions at Ryanair, the low-cost airline.

"How stupid do you have to be?" he asks, rhetorically.

To him, union demands for higher wages when airline profits are so fragile explains the sorry state of the airline industry.

When asked about the chances of success when Balpa, the British Air Line Pilots Association, gets its first chance in three years to canvass Ryanair pilots for recognition this autumn, he is characteristically succinct. "They'll lose."

It will be an interesting battle, however. Far from being the union haters epitomised by Mr O'Leary, many low-cost airlines are unionised, and have had relationships with organised labour that bear no resemblance to BA's bitter wrangling.

Chris Avery of JP Morgan says this is often because of loyalty bred by charismatic entrepreneurs, such as Stelios Haji-Ioannou of EasyJet and Richard Branson at Virgin Atlantic.

Even Southwest Airlines, the pioneer and role model of low-cost airlines, has let the unions in. As the US airline's success has grown over the past five years, it has conceded large pay settlements to pilots and flight attendants - traditionally the most productive workers in the industry.

Some say this has given it the trappings of its high-cost rivals.

In the UK, EasyJet, Ryanair's chief rival, has recognised unions for its 2,330 pilots and cabin crews, and some union representation arrived when it took over Go, BA's former no-frills arm.

Toby Nicol, spokesman for EasyJet, says the relationship has helped it borrow successful rostering practices that have worked for unions in other airlines. But he sees little likelihood of unions making outrageous demands. "The reality of operating a short-haul, low-cost airline is that if we make £2.50 a passenger, we're not giving you 50p of that, and any reasonable group of pilots would agree," he says.

It took 73-year-old Herb Kelleher, the beloved founder of Southwest, to help resolve a flight attendants' pay dispute at Southwest this year. He had to be called in from retirement.

Whether O'Leary, famous for his sharp tongue, has the charm to keep his pilots on his side may well determine whether Ryanair remains union-free.
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www.ise.ie/app/announceme...?ID=864267 (Methinks they do protest too much).

Let the games begin....
 
Thanks Asimov,

You were right. This begs the question why was the mainstream media so slow to pick up on this story?

ajapale
 
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If I was in his position, I too would avoid unions like the plague.
 
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What if your position was that of one of his employees?
 
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If I was one of his employees, and I wasn't happy with my conditions, I'd get a job elsewhere.
 
Re: .

If I were one of his employees I'd excercise my right(guaranteed under the laws of this country) to form a trade union.

ajapale
 
Re: .

I'd excercise my right(guaranteed under the laws of this country) to form a trade union.
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Actually, your right is to join a trade union, not to form one. I hear it is very difficult to form a new union and get a 'negotiating licence' these days.

MOL of course recognises employees legal rights to join any union. He just refuses to negotiate with the union.
 
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> If I was one of his employees, and I wasn't happy with my conditions, I'd get a job elsewhere.

In previous jobs (all non union) I've had cause, and the respect of the management to be able, to intercede on behalf of colleagues who were arguably being harshly treated. In some cases it helped while in others it did not. If I had been a member of a union or even some other form of employee representative body (aren't companies over a particular size now obliged to have employe representatives on some sort of company committee?) it MAY have been easier to formalise such a negotiation process and to have people (on both sides) get a fair hearing before any action was taken and without the intervention of parties (such as myself) not necessarily originally involved. Personally I would not only think of myself in these situations but of others too. However maybe I'm in a minority?
 
Re: .

Hi rainy,

yes, of course, what I meant was the right to join a trade union.

Do you have the right to organise a trade union where none exists?

ajapale

Im not in a trade union.
 
I presume you can join a union or form a union (branch) where one did not exist before but there is no obligation on the employer to engage in collective negotiation/bargaining with employees through the union.
 
Recognition...

That is the very issue over which the war will start.

My next prediction....when BALPA/IALPA demand to meet O'Leary as representatives of the majority of his pilots - he will go ballistic. He'll find a few victims within the pilot body to 'make an example of'. Probably by firing them on a trumped up pretext.
Things will spiral downward from there quickly as their colleagues take action to support them.

The stupidity of all this is that MOL could have avoided it...still can avoid it...with a common sense attitude.
But he's a lunatic on a mission.
 
Micko loses the head...

Well Micko lost the ould head today and decided to threaten legal action against a pilots website (www.pprune.com) which has been hosting a record 40 page long thread by angry Ryanair pilots.

It seems Micko didn't like his troops washing the dirty linen in public, and (free speech bedamned) he's served a writ on the operator of the website.

Better watch yourself Brendan!

The owner of the site (one Captain Danny Fyne) has had similiar gagging actions thrown at him before, but has consistently refused to back down to bully boy tactics. His legal advisors are examining the documentation and he has promised to reinstate the (suspended) thread if he determines there is no case to answer.

Read all about it here: www.pprune.org/forums/sho...did=142388

More news....the 200 (out of 250) Stansted pilots O'Leary claims attended his 'voluntary' meetings last week were today revealed to have been trainees bussed down from Prestwick and Birmingham in order to bolster numbers and save Micko's face.

Apparently some major shareholders have also been discretely expressing their disquiet about the way things are developing on the labour front.

Standby for further developments.
 
Union

Excuse me guys, the debate about them forming a union is unnecessary. The union already exists. For the Irish it is the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA - www.ialpa.net) and for the UK guys if it the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA - www.balpa.org)

I understand that Ryanair member recruitment is moving along nicely thank you.
 
Ryanair

I heard Ryanair pilots now have to pay for their own in flight water? Is this true?
 
Water

Yep, and coffee/tea also.

But thats not the half of it.
Most of his latest recruits are so desperate to get a flying job they are now paying him to let him fly the aircraft. The idea being that if they build enough experience they can escape to an airline with decent conditions.

One guy recently told me that one of these slaves was scheduled for his bi-annual simulator check and had to drive from Stansted to Birmingham where the check was to be held. Ryanair do not provide overnight accomodation, and he was so broke he had to sleep in his car after the check, before driving back to work in Stansted next day.
I'll bet he was well rested for his flight! Wonder how the pax would feel if they knew their 'professionals' up front (the guys with their lives in their hands) might have spent the night kipping in a banger on the roadside!

I guess you saw the headlines today about the Ryanair Captain who had a heart attack in flight. I knew the guy...lovely man. He's in a permanent vegetative state in Limerick now. Libellous comment removed by RainyDay
Lucky the F/O was able to get down single handed....this time.
 
Re: Water

Hi Asimov - Please tread carefully with your comments here. Your original comment could bring the wrath of Ryanair down on AAM. Verifiable facts are fine - matters of opinion stated as facts are not.
 
a paperwork "anomaly" Ryanair had failed to train

From the Guardian

www.guardian.co.uk/uk_new...59,00.html

Plea to airlines after pilot's collapse

Andrew Clark, transport correspondent
Thursday August 26, 2004
The Guardian

Airlines were urged yesterday to carry life-saving equipment to treat heart attack victims, after an investigation into the collapse of a Ryanair pilot on a flight carrying 137 passengers.
The first officer of a flight from Brussels to London had to take control of the aircraft, declare an emergency and return to Belgium's Charleroi airport after realising that the captain appeared "lifeless".

An official report into the incident, which happened two years ago, said the senior flight attendant, who was called to the cockpit, gave the captain oxygen and moved his feet off the rudder pedals but was unable to revive him. Investigators found that because of a paperwork "anomaly", Ryanair had failed to train the attendant on how to respond to the incapacity of a pilot.

Despite the efforts of a doctor on the flight, who initially declared the pilot dead before resuscitating him, the captain never fully recovered.

Safety regulators in Ireland yesterday urged aviation's international governing body, ICAO, to make it mandatory for airlines to carry defibrillators - which are used to revive heart attack victims. They have been a requirement on flights in America since April. BA, BMI and Virgin Atlantic already carry them on intercontinental flights.
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Ryan air

what is it with the Irish people and Ryan air MOL has provided cheap flights I just cant understand all the giving out on this board about him
 
Asimov - I've deleted your subsequent posts. You have repeated the libellous point, with just a tiny bit more subtlety. If you want to repeatedly beat up on MOL/Ryanair, head back to PPRUNE or set up your own site. You are not welcome to push right up against the limits of proprietry here on AAM.

Yet another Ryanair thread closed - Perhaps we should update our posting guidelines to ban discussions of religion AND Ryanair :mad
 
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