Important changes to Ryan Air travel...

[Burble]

Originally Posted by Danny

<snip>

Is it true what I heard from a Pilot friend that ex RyanAir Pilots can have real problems getting employment elsewhere because of bad habits they pick up at RA?

The example I was given was (I think) that Pilots must set a piece of GPS equipment when on stand but RA pilots had such a short turn around that they were encouraged to reset it whilst taxing to the runway.

[Mark]

And it seems they're a few steps away from making the seat a chargeable extra. No doubt with cabin air, the oxygen mask and lifejacket to follow as per the instructions Burble posted.

Ryanair also confirmed it had been in talks with European safety regulators about proposals to allow passengers to stand on its flights.

Source

I'm not sure about the relative probability of severe turbulence over land, but you get it in that situation and you've got concussed passengers and law suits. Nicely done!

[Danny]

As this thread has been bumped

Originally Posted by jmc41

They are the only company worse than easyJet, but that's just my opinion. They don't claim to be good although two things do bug me...

I really don't understand why neither EJ or Ryanair can afford to put seat numbers on tickets either - I don't require a service to pick my seat 24h in advance for a 16h flight, but I do appreciate being able to sit next to my friend or relative.

Being courteous (or even civil) costs nothing. Neither does keeping passengers informed as to the reason for the 2 hour delay, or telling them there will be one rather than just never releasing the gate number while stuck in a spanish airport at 2am or something.

They're like british rail, they always get you there, eventually. (Waits for comment about prices).

Seat numbers costs money. Not on printing but allocating in the first place. It takes extra time and holds up check in while people whine about sitting in a certain place. You need more staff. Much easier to just have 140 seats and whoever gets there first gets them.

Personally I'd like to see seat allocation on our flights so we could prosecute the gay men that like to nick seatbelts off our flights.

Originally Posted by Mark

No, they're really not. They like cutting corners to save time/money, and while that's fine within reason, there's always the risk they'll go one step too far and skip something that matters (like safety). While EJ do the same to some extent, they don't turn up in the press every other month for their latest scheme.

I can tell you without a shadow of doubt working at Easyjets main base that there isn't one of our permie members of staff that put money before safety, ever. I've never seen anyone have any qualms about grounding a flight and kicking off punters if they think there is a safety issue.

Yet there are much larger higher profile Airlines in this country and europe where it's well known the airlines are deferring defects until the last leg of the day and Europe sits back and lets it happen.

Originally Posted by Burble

Is it true what I heard from a Pilot friend that ex RyanAir Pilots can have real problems getting employment elsewhere because of bad habits they pick up at RA?

The example I was given was (I think) that Pilots must set a piece of GPS equipment when on stand but RA pilots had such a short turn around that they were encouraged to reset it whilst taxing to the runway.

Nah it's not a long job to re-align the IRS. 6 or 7 minutes. When you consider how long it takes to offload and reload the time frame isn't the issue it would be lazyness.

Originally Posted by Mark

And it seems they're a few steps away from making the seat a chargeable extra. No doubt with cabin air, the oxygen mask and lifejacket to follow as per the instructions Burble posted.

I'm not sure about the relative probability of severe turbulence over land, but you get it in that situation and you've got concussed passengers and law suits. Nicely done!

It's Ryanair, it's what they do. Hit the headlines with a load of old balls and it works. You will never be able to stand on a flight and they know that already. A part of me would love to see him go bust for his practices with employees and safety, also the way he hints at other companies going under to create a false uncertainty with that airline. That costs normal people in the street jobs.

[AboveTheSalt]

Originally Posted by jmc41

I really don't understand why neither EJ or Ryanair can afford to put seat numbers on tickets either - I don't require a service to pick my seat 24h in advance for a 16h flight, but I do appreciate being able to sit next to my friend or relative.

Because they save money by not allocating a seat and can then make money by charging you to board first and because not allocating a seat encourages people to board fast rather than spending those last few moments browsing in duty-free; RyanAir & EasyJet win all round and one can't entirely blame them in view of people's casual approach to getting to the flight on time

[Admiral Huddy]

Have you seen how quickly they turn around those flights? Under an allocation scheme this would double..

[Danny]

Yep we have 30 minutes to fix any defect during the day, defer it or deck it.

Funniest I've ever had is an engine snag late evening. I got called out the aircraft was full and as a second check I ran the engine with 140 punters onboard. The engine lit up in a fireball and continued spitting them out, up until I shutdown.

As I left the flight deck I looked down the cabin and saw a mass of panic. I fully expected to be in the Sun the next day Would have made a great picture.

Needless to say they switched aircraft.

[Mark]

Are you sure there wasn't a fireball-chucking Imp from hell in there?

[Feek]

Is the procedure on the 737-800 for aligning the IRSs the same as on the 744, ie IRS switches from OFF thru ALIGN to NAV and then go through POS INIT on the FMC? IIRC it's about a ten minute procedure for the alignment to happen.

(I had to dig out my Big Boeing FMC User's Guide for that!)

[Danny]

Pretty much the same although you can quick align if you know where you are or manually input the position. We auto align and it takes about 7-8 minutes. It depends on where you are as to how long it takes.

Big Boeing FMC book haha, one of my collegues has a lady bird book of airplanes. He likes to pull that out every time he gets called out to a new pilot.

They tell him the problem and he says, let me just consult the manual. The face is usually priceless.

[Feek]

Heh heh, that'd be worth videoing! In all seriousness though, the Big Boeing FMC guide is pretty good. I bought it a few years ago when I was doing an awful lot of 747PS1 flying and it's quite incredible how detailed the sim was. So much so that when I had a session on the 744 sim at Heathrow I fixed the fuel feed configuration issue that the *ahem* fairly new trainer didn't know how to fix! It was quite funny when we landed for the first time and I did all the autobrakes and shizzle, just from using the PC sim which she immediately disengaged!