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Ryanair

Let’ be the advocates diaboli.
What is wrong with that. People want cheap flights and they get what they pay for in the end.
Someone has to pay the price. It is happening in all industries.
Why come clothes from Vietnam, Thailand, India, China and Pakistan? There is child labour and not many care about.
The reason behind this is people want cheap and cheaper.
Why is the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy made in China, not in US or Europe?
A pilot is an employee, not a god. He is not different from lorry or bus driver, you know what pressure they have in their daily live.
Whether a bus falls off a cliff and kills 40 to 60 people or a jet crashes and kills 150 all is a factored in.

Pilot is just a job like any other, they glorious days are over.

Now get your guns.

United Kingdom

you can’t help but think they (and others) take advantage of the desperation of some of the people who come forward who want to fly for them

I don’t know about the airline business here, but quite a few people I know in the US did the whole airline thing. One thing that struck me is pilots were so desperate to fly they would do it for almost free (in the US, an FO in a regional airline makes less than a burger flipper at Mc.D’s, certainly not a living wage, so you have to still be living at home to afford to do it, and jobs lower down in the food chain tend to be dismally paid and in very marginal equipment, with enormous pressure to fly single pilot IFR in poor weather not really suitable for the equipment the aircraft has).

There was more than one “pilot shortage” while I was living in Texas, and I figured that when airlines talked of a pilot shortage, what they meant was that there was only 20 qualified applicants for each job instead of 200.

Andreas IOM

Let’ be the advocates diaboli.

Congratulations, you seem to be a natural for that role

Of course you know that the responsibilities and demands in an aircraft cockpit are higher than behind the wheel of a bus/lorry, but more important in this context is that

  • bus/lorry drivers do not have to pay for their own training (or the sums are vastly smaller)
  • they are well-protected by labour law.

The profession of pilots has historically been out of the focus of labour regulation, because

  • their number was/is comparatively small
  • they ranked high up on the income ladder anyways.

Today, the reduced earnings potential, the increased pressure and the lack of political representation combine to create a “perfect storm” for the pilot profession. This has to be addressed by the regulators – not primarily because of safety concerns (I fail to see where Ryanair is more unsafe than eg. Air France), but because creating fair industrial relations is one of the most basic tasks of a government in a social market economy.

You want it the American way with far less labour regulation? Fine for me, but than give me the complete American system with vastly less taxes and vastly more personal freedom

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

The head of the swiss aircraft accident investigation office once told me the following joke: “do you know the difference between a bus driver, a train driver and a pilot? there is none, but the pilot is the only one who hasn’t realised it yet”.

bus/lorry drivers do not have to pay for their own training

Not true in my part of the world, although you are right that the sums are an order of magnitude less

they are well-protected by labour law.

I don’t think that’s true either. In theory both are well protected, in practice it doesn’t quite work out for both.

LSZK, Switzerland

I don’t think that’s true either.

The same here. Most truck drivers are self-employed subcontractors of large logistics companies, some owning their own truck (or at least paying the leasing rates for it) and constantly competing against low-cost competition from former eastern block countries that are now part of the EU and are free to offer their services on this market. Even the worst pay-to-fly pilot exploitation scheme is heaven compared to the life of these guys.

Last Edited by what_next at 12 Mar 14:19
EDDS - Stuttgart

Blueline.

Thanks.

What means more responsibility?
128 passengers in a double decker bus or 180 passengers in a 737-800 or 880 passenger in an normal ICE high speed train.
Is it the number of passengers?
There are frequent accidents. More busses fall off a cliff than planes crash in Europe.

A friend of mine does both. He is (Air)bus driver (A320) and lorry driver.
You have to pay for your initial and recurrent training as lorry driver too. Safety training, commercial (95), ADR….. even pay for your medicals.

Last Edited by mdoerr at 12 Mar 16:47
United Kingdom

Truck drivers are poor bastards, especially since the eastern expansion of the EU, no doubt about that.

However, the comparison between them paying for training etc. and pilots paying for training doesn’t work, as the sums are enormously different.

IMHO one cannot say that there are more accidents in road traffic because it is more demanding than flying an aircraft. The difference is rather due to the many safety nets in aviation, both technological and procedural, and the high standards of crew training.

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

(I fail to see where Ryanair is more unsafe than eg. Air France)

Because Air France does not force pilots to fly with fuel quantities they’re not comfortable with and because Air France does not pressurize pilots so much that they feel compelled to fly even when they are sick.

SE France

Because Air France does not force pilots to fly with fuel quantities they’re not comfortable with and because Air France does not pressurize pilots so much that they feel compelled to fly even when they are sick.

Maybe, but look up the safety records of both airlines at Aviation Safety Network or Avherald and you’ll see who had more accidents/serious incidents in the past decade …

The fact that Ryanair operates nearly 300 aircraft and only had a single hull loss (due to a massive bird strike that was handled very well) is a testimonial to the competence of their crews. It’s just a shame that they don’t get paid accordingly …

IMHO they deserve criticism for their labour practices, but one cannot call them unsafe.

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria
What means more responsibility?
128 passengers in a double decker bus or 180 passengers in a 737-800 or 880 passenger in an normal ICE high speed train.

Or one person at a time if you’re performing heart surgery?

Something to do with risks, requirement for attention to detail, scarcity of the intellectual ability to learn the relevant background skills and knowledge…

Last Edited by kwlf at 14 Mar 20:29
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