Mr.OL tells the Belgian goverment to **** OFF.

Interflug, you are indeed correct, I find it sad that us wannabes have to aspire to such carriers, but as you say, it’s a launch into the industry, and at the moment any way in must be taken!

Exactly the same in the TV business, yesterday there was a recruitment advertisment for a television sports company hoping to make a splash covering the Scottish Premier League for the next four years. Basically the Ryanair of television. “Camera Operator’s required, experience preferred, graduates considered”

I assume the likes of Ryanair et al are no more than a good starting point and a place to gain experience, whilst suffering poor terms and conditions along with something of a shafting salary wise ?

Interflug, you are indeed correct, I find it sad that us wannabes have to aspire to such carriers, but as you say, it’s a launch into the industry, and at the moment any way in must be taken!

This article made me laugh, he talks of not allowing check-in baggage or charging for the priviledge, then goes on to say why do we need seats? 😮 What is this guy on?! 😉

SPIEGEL ONLINE: To lower your prices and your cost, you’ve started to make airplanes more spartan: no window blinds, no seat pockets, no reclinable seats. Where’s that going to lead?

O’Leary: Adapting seats is relatively small beer. The big change that could be coming is eliminating check-in baggage. If you do that, you can simplify the way airports are designed. You no longer have baggage haul, no handlers. No lost bags, no lost-bag departments.

Strange the only people who usually have to checkin baggage are us plane spotters and business people (carry on brief case). You would have thought he would want holiday makers to be on ryanair…..

This article made me laugh, he talks of not allowing check-in baggage or charging for the priviledge, then goes on to say why do we need seats? 😮 What is this guy on?! 😉

SPIEGEL ONLINE: To lower your prices and your cost, you’ve started to make airplanes more spartan: no window blinds, no seat pockets, no reclinable seats. Where’s that going to lead?

O’Leary: Adapting seats is relatively small beer. The big change that could be coming is eliminating check-in baggage. If you do that, you can simplify the way airports are designed. You no longer have baggage haul, no handlers. No lost bags, no lost-bag departments.

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Strange the only people who usually have to checkin baggage are us plane spotters and business people (carry on brief case). You would have thought he would want holiday makers to be on ryanair…..

I’m banned from RyanAir after I wrote a letter of complaint in 2002. Is this a great loss?

MOL strikes me as an odious, uncouth little oik.

Mike

LOL as do a lot of people.

Being banned from Ryainair.. I’d say thats a godsend.

Interflug, thank you for the informative responce. Just what we needed on this thread.

Martin, I can quite see where your coming from but is’nt it a pity that even from a perspective pilots angle the civil aviation landscape has become one where yor sights have to be set on a carrier like that one, but thats the new reality. But then again if it launches you to where you want to be then good luck to you. (But lets hope if it has to be one them, then its easyJet!)

I just want to give my opinion from a wannabe’s point of view. When I leave flight school next year with my brand new fATPL as sad as it is Ryanair along with easyJet will be one of my first ports of call for a job. I’ll make this move, not because I love Ryanair, but because they are one of the only chances for me to get a decent big jet job. The pilots job market is most certainly picking up, but there is still a massive surplus, the likes of Ryanair sadly can treat their staff as they like, we, as low hours pilots have no choice.

God I’m begging that easyJet will take me on, but otherwise I very much suspect that I may well be flying for MOL next year.

I’m banned from RyanAir after I wrote a letter of complaint in 2002. Is this a great loss?

MOL strikes me as an odious, uncouth little oik.

Mike

ribbelc Ryanair couldnt care less and I dont any other airline could weather or not they fly to a spottable airport.The fact of the matter is we all have our personal opinions and no matter what we are all going to have huge dissagreements.This could go on forever so lets just agree to disagree.If we want to work in cmmercial aviation we will have to be mature about it and arnt we lucky or biggest worry is who better Ryanair or Easyjet.They both have positive and negative aspects like everything in life so nots all fall out over this argument.Ive calmed down but I was fuming after reading a few posts earlier on.

Pretty good conclusion indeed 🙂

ribbelc Ryanair couldnt care less and I dont any other airline could weather or not they fly to a spottable airport.The fact of the matter is we all have our personal opinions and no matter what we are all going to have huge dissagreements.This could go on forever so lets just agree to disagree.If we want to work in cmmercial aviation we will have to be mature about it and arnt we lucky or biggest worry is who better Ryanair or Easyjet.They both have positive and negative aspects like everything in life so nots all fall out over this argument.Ive calmed down but I was fuming after reading a few posts earlier on.

Personally RYR could go down tomorrow and I would not shed a tear. Well apart from me needing a few of their 738 frames. They simply do not fly anywhere I want to go. STN is 90min drive away and apart from DUB they do not fly to a ‘spotable’ airport.
Im am flying Squeezyjet to AMS for the first time in a few weeks. Obviously its not as cheap as RYR but it goes from somewhere I want to fly from(LGW) to the citys major airport.

Thanks for your comments guys….reading my post again makes sound like a right know all but that was’nt my intention.
Bmused…I presently work in the biz jet ops field for an organization based in both LTN and STN involving Gulfstream 4 and 5 jets. Prior to this the bulk of my career was in the handling agent/ops field except for 1 yr spent in the employ of Aeroflot in 1993.
Mark, I just have severe doubts about the long term effects of the LoCos on the industry insofar as the lot of the employees has definately deteriorated over the last few years. Moral has collapsed along with the prospects of career advancement and decent wages, evidence seems to be materialising in the form of what others have posted on here ref sombre looking/indifferent crews/staff etc. And as I put in an earlier post the looming fuel price hike will be really bad for these carriers as the business model for them seems to rest on an endless supply of cheap “gas” and if not that then endless subsidies from who knows where (legal or otherwise) And as I said earlier when these carriers have driven away the full service airlines and then tossed in the towel themselves due to poor returns on their “investment” in certain regions, who picks up the pieces when areas are left with either severely degraded service or none at all? Witness the demise of Air Littoral and others. I remember well, and I’m sure others will too, the early LoCo bohemoths Air Florida and Peoples Express both unassailable success stories in their day but long gone now, in the case of People Express I understand that collapsed employee moral was a major factor in that carriers demise. I realise that Southwest in the US is a major part of that countries aviation scene but like the LoCos here they don’t do longhaul and if the full sevice guys end up so crippled by the likes of FR and Ezy in Europe then looking ahead some countries could end up with a mutilated route structure lacking a lot of direct long haul connections and I don’t see that being good for anyone inside our industry or for passengers, unless the LoCos step in and replace them on these services, but I just don’t see it. Anyway these are just personal theories based on my own experiences, if it all works out in the years ahead then I’ll be proved wrong and we’ll all be flying the globe for next to nothing. But will we?????

I hope the Belgian government impounds a plane. When he comes to collect it they can say ‘f**k off!’

That won’t happen.
Firstly, banning Ryanair would mean the unemployment in our country would get even worse. Secondly Ryanair had a great contribituion to the Belgian economy, which is remarkably recovering faster than other countries.
Thirdly, practices like this are very childish. They can’t ban ryanair from Belgium, the can’t. Imagine: “I lost my job because the government said my employer had to leave the country”. Shouldn’t that make you lose your thrust in the government? Yes.

Hi there Interflug,

You present a very interesting and no doubt knowledgeable view on the debate. I have read many similar types of posts on this topic on other forums, but I am slightly confused by exactly what you mean when you talk about how FR is affecting the long term viability of the industry. Could you explain (or anyone else who holds a similar view) what it is you believe FR is doing? Do you mean in terms of service standards dropping, if so I am unsure how this will affect the industry long term.

Cheers

Mark

Well, thats what I’m on about.
Pax all very well, but the Staff are treat pretty roughly, and that reflects on the service (or lack thereof) they give.

Interflug,… what do you work as?

I don’t know how many of you on here are (or were) involved with civil aviation as a career, I’ve recently resumed a 21yr aviation career after a 2yr break. I worked alongside RYR, though thankfully not for it, for a very long time, so I’m seeing this argument from that perspective, as many more of you may be. In my own opinion its all very well to crow on about the “lurvelly cheap fares” and many of you have obviously taken advantage of them but have any of you thought about what the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet are doing to the long term viability of the industry that we all profess
to love so much? Along with the fares the standards have fallen likewise, as has been pointed out first casualty was customer service, I know this from working experience and in watching first hand the woeful lack of support given to colleagues in another company by Ryanairs “customer service supervisors” when things went wrong, as they very frequently did, the treatment of passengers with sometimes quite genuine problems was disgraceful, thankfully our company refused to get involved with RYR and I think that our careers were all the more bearable for that. I would not go so far as to label RYR as unsafe but I well remember working an Austrian registered DHC Dash7 on day at STN when an RYR 737-200 came into the apron area so fast that the aircraft was leaning around the corner, the quote from my Capt. was “My God, that guys going to kill someone!” Draw your own conclusions. On another day the pilot of a Canadian registered L10-11 complained to ATC at the way an RYR aircraft was being taxied close to him. Before I climb down off this soapbox, I saw many good people loose good careers because of these carriers so yes I’m possibly biased but we all know these fare structures are not sustainable and the antics of these carriers has in some instances been responsible for some regions losing worthwhile services, as the LoCos have driven away the incumbent full service guys and then thrown their own toys in the corner and quit when the fares and pax numbers don’t add up. Is this the real recipe for the long term survival of commercial aviation? Personally I don’t think so, so I guess its a case of enjoy it while it lasts! Thank You….Rant over.
PS. Can’t comment on easyJet as it was still “Go” during the time covered here.

Crap maybe, suffice to say they have changed aviation in Europe, I say for the better. The 16 million pax have spoken I think.

Mark

Ryanair are not UTTER crap. Fair enough they certianly aren’t nowhere near the best, but they get you from A to B at a very good price. Thats all travellers need, and they have opened the doors for many more people to travel. You might they say they have had a few incidents with the -200s but not many at all. They are replacing them with brand new -800s. You look at the reviews on carsurvey.org/air for example, and many are very positive.
I would certianly fly with them again.

This article made me laugh, he talks of not allowing check-in baggage or charging for the priviledge, then goes on to say why do we need seats? 😮 What is this guy on?! 😉

SPIEGEL ONLINE: To lower your prices and your cost, you’ve started to make airplanes more spartan: no window blinds, no seat pockets, no reclinable seats. Where’s that going to lead?

O’Leary: Adapting seats is relatively small beer. The big change that could be coming is eliminating check-in baggage. If you do that, you can simplify the way airports are designed. You no longer have baggage haul, no handlers. No lost bags, no lost-bag departments.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,301722,00.html

Although there was talk of pay-per-view ptvs!

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So pay-per-use entertainment might become a source of income?

O’Leary: Yea. People with children can swipe their credit card and watch cartoons. It’s the only way to keep the children quiet. If the flight is full of men – pornography! I don’t care as long as customers want it and it lowers fares. Maybe flying will be free in 2015 and airports will pay us to carry their passengers. There’s no reason why we can’t change the whole economics of air travel – apart from the fact that the industry is run by a bunch of numb nuts.

This gets more and more worrying by the minute! I was hoping this wasn’t authentic…..it is. Remind me, is this guy meant to be professionally running an airline? 😮

http://www.ryanair.com/investor/results/2003annualreportcolour.pdf