From the Irish Times.
In early 2018, Bellew had to tackle other issues that fell under his charge. In February, it emerged that Airworthiness Review Certificates – documents confirming that planes have passed necessary safety checks – had not been completed for 162 aircraft, a third of Ryanair’s fleet.
While the checks had been done as required and there was no question about the crafts’ airworthiness, the paperwork had not been done. The Irish Aviation Authority, which regulates safety, could have grounded the planes. Bellew helped avoid this by giving his word that the checks had been done. Ryanair subsequently provided the certificates within a six-week deadline set by the authority.
Bellew’s handling of this crisis and a restructuring of the engineering department earned credit from O’Leary at the chief operating officer’s review in March 2018. As part of his reward, he was given 100,000 share options in the company, one fifth of a 500,000 tranche, which he could have ultimately cashed in five years later
No ARC, no big deal it’s just paperwork. Sort it out and get a share options package. If someone in GA did that….. 
Quite astonishing that they did not have any SAFA checks(ramp checks) done on any of these aircraft during that time. That seems too incredible to be true…
I suspect there is some crazy stuff that goes on in commercial aviation but it gets very neatly brushed aside.
Ryanair, 100+ million passengers, one scandal after another (pseudo self employed, skimping taxes, dodgy maintenance practice) all in eu airspace. How many people can turn a blind eye? Lots, it seems.
Fly310 wrote:
Quite astonishing that they did not have any SAFA checks(ramp checks) done on any of these aircraft during that time.
SAFA is for non-EU operators & aircraft. The check they could have gotten is a SACA check. I just guess the latter are rarer, and maybe less thorough.
Snoopy wrote:
Ryanair, 100+ million passengers, one scandal after another (pseudo self employed, skimping taxes, dodgy maintenance practice) all in eu airspace. How many people can turn a blind eye? Lots, it seems
They have an outstanding safety record which, I admit, is pretty surprising given how the company is run.
This sort of thing works because nobody thinks of looking.
Not far from here, the story goes, someone built a little house in the woods. In a conservation area, etc. Maybe 20-30 years ago. Absolutely no chance of getting a planning permission. Someone else added a large garage to their house. Someone else built a huge block of stables. All these were done well before 10 years ago so are “home and dry” now So how does this work? Most people walking past assume whoever is doing it must have got planning permission because you could not possibly be so reckless. And so long as whatever you are doing is not visible from some hill which is popular with the “countryside surveillance team” (a self appointed load of busybodies with big binoculars and no life, who check up on property extensions etc) you will get away with it, and 10 years later it doesn’t matter.
Nobody would think that a major airline in N Europe would not have the right paperwork
Ryanair (and Easyjet) are very safe because they have almost new planes (as anyone down in Africa will tell you, you could fly a B737 for 10-20 years from new and do nothing but change the oil and it would be fine 
), good pilots (as any woman will tell you, it takes more skill to fly a Boeing ) and all the usual reasons why airline flight is safe (high perf aircraft, excellent ice protection, radar, flying same routes all the time, total ATC co-operation, etc).
Peter wrote:
Ryanair (and Easyjet) are very safe because they have almost new planes (as anyone down in Africa will tell you, you could fly a B737 for 10-20 years from new and do nothing but change the oil and it would be fine ), good pilots (as any woman will tell you, it takes more skill to fly a Boeing ) and all the usual reasons why airline flight is safe (high perf aircraft, excellent ice protection, radar, flying same routes all the time, total ATC co-operation, etc).
And they are very data driven (FDM/FOQA). Evidence based training bla bla bla…
And pilots tend to cope well with „pressure“ as they, like everybody else, prefer to survive by all means.
Peter wrote:
you could fly a B737 for 10-20 years from new and do nothing but change the oil and it would be fine
Smiley noted, but I suspect we might all be surprised just how many issues can come to light in that period of time, unless the BBJ is made to a different standard that is.
The business model of budget airlines requires a lean operation. As anyone who will have done lean transformation in companies will know, a big part of that is having very good availability / very little surprises. They probably have more pressure / more focus put on their engineering departments than lots of flagship companies. Running single type of plane (literally for Ryanair, but I think for airbus there are no meaningful differences between the 319/20/21 versions of the planes) obviously helps a lot.
These days flying BA / (add pretty much any other flagship) is no different than Ryanair / easyjet. Pretty much same limitations.
Corporate behaviour is something that can be debated, but in terms of security and comfort, I think for short haul, every company is the same. My deciding factors end up usually being just schedule and airport (LHR / Luton for instance are usually no gos for me since commute is way too annoying)
