David

There isn’t an ILS here, and as far as I can see there isn’t an NDB appoach either.

Dean

Light snow & fog won’t bring down an airliner on it’s own. The associated icing conditions are not known but the DH8D is very robust when it comes to icing. However, it is only certified to fly in moderate icing conditions.

All flight training is conducted with your left hand on the control column and your right on the throttles, when you start with an airline you have to convert to the other way around. This is done in the sim and is no big deal. For me I was lucky, after flight training I did a few hundred hrs instructing so I converted to the right seat earlier, it took about 5 flight hrs to get it right. Converting back to the left seat should be just as painless, by the time you come out the sim from the command course you’ll be conversant.
Last november I did Chambery training, we only had F/Os on the course so we had to act as Captain on some legs (in the sim may I add), flying it was fine, the thing I found that was broken down was my instrument scan, the right/left combination had little or no effect.

So why wont you fly with them, Deano? I understand you may want to be loyal to other carriers (such as BEE, BAW, BMA, VIR) but why are you so adamant about flying with Ryanair?

I have nothing against what they do, they do it well, they get you from A to C (c-b is normally on public transport). All I’ll say is if you know of a Ryanair cadet who has made it onto the flightdeck then ask him about what he has had to pay out from day 1.

rdc

Fair enough, but they are still losing money, they have to tempt punters onto their aircraft, the only way to do this is to charge less than their competitors, hence the fare reduction of 9%, they can’t keep reducing fares, something has to give.

You must misunderstand their business model then because if you want to book from Manchester to Dublin (as an example) on Monday for a day return then it’ll set you back £330 (as of the search I just did) so you need to remember that Ryanair do yield manage, just like your airline does. The reason they sell 1p fares is to hit load factor targets and website hits, both to drive ancillary revenue.

I’m very aware of the yield management and ancillary revenue (the whole essence of the low cost model), but the price you stated above (£330) proves the point, the model isn’t working in this economic climate because they now have to charge £330 return on higher yield seats. This seems over and above the usual Ryanair ticket pricing. I’ve never flown them, and I never will so long as I have a hole in my backside so maybe others can confirm what a “typical” return ticket set them back let’s say, a year ago?

Here’s tonights METARS from STN

METAR : EGSS STN LONDON STANSTED
METAR EGSS 290050Z 14007KT 110V180 0200 R23/0400 R05/0400 DZ FG VV/// 04/04 Q1016=
METAR EGSS 290020Z 14009KT 0200 R23/0400 R05/0375 DZ FG VV/// 04/04 Q1015=
METAR EGSS 282350Z 14008KT 0150 R23/0400 R05/0375 DZ FG VV/// 04/04 Q1015 REDZ=
METAR EGSS 282320Z 13008KT 0200 R23/0375 R05/0350 DZ FG VV/// 04/04 Q1015=

Met vis outside CATII limits, so yes that’s almost certainly why they diverted.

Dean

I don’t quite think I would go as far as describing it “The Best Complaint Letter Ever!”, good effort though! 🙂

I have to agree, it was only “ok” written at best. Wouldn’t mind £10 for every time he used the name Richard :rolleyes:

No worries at all, anything else feel free to post/PM