Sounds like a great idea and could make a good film. The early years, the flying years in the war, then POW and escape linking up with the Russians back to Moscow, then test flying after the war and the latter years and his friendship with Galland.

Ryanair planes don’t really fly full of low fare passengers though. A month or more in advance you may well be able to get ridiculously cheap fares, but as as it starts to fill up the price increases. Certainly on the LBA-DUB route it isn’t too uncommon to find return fares of £300 near the date of travel, and there are people who pay that. Granted, that’s primarily a business route and if people need to travel they will, regardless of the cost, but I’m sure similar applies to other routes as well.

Paul

Interesting so the average passenger fare will almost certainly be well above the “low fare” except to some dedicated holiday destinations, perhaps.

WC Fields…?

Or was his along the lines of … ” Children! can’t live with them, can’t cook ’em !” :rolleyes:

Thank you – probably both!:D

There is more – or much much less depending on your outlook – to Ryanair than any member of the public will ever realize. Ryanair has done more to harm the aviation industry than the sum of allowing more people to fly.

Make no mistake, flying is an expensive business from start-to-finish. The regulation that makes flying safer, often makes it more expensive. Think of part suppliers; Goodrich, Bridgestone, Honeywell, Liebherr who develop aircraft parts, and must certify their components for aircraft. Think of the training involved for the men and woman who handle, fly and maintain aircraft. Think of the people and experience required to manage, and control flight operation. Think of those that safely guide your aircraft from A-to-B (or-C). Start to build that mental image of all those involved in the day-to-day operations.

You will quickly figure (I hope) that a 737-800 full of “low-fares” doesn’t cover a great deal of the inherent costs.

What you have had over the years has been the continual degradation of pay, T&C’s and moral of those same people who were already in the industry. New staff are getting less and less and are expected to do the same job, for longer with less.

Just as the low-fares have ripped the **** from the industry, the full-fare airlines have been guilty of ripping of the flying public. They now have large cost base that cannot compete with the likes of Ryanair. There is a sweet-spot between these two extremes, but the public want to pay as little as possible.

I have seen far too many skillful, experienced people leave the industry – and that is the real cost of “low-fares”!

I am not disputing what you say but surely it is far more complicated than that. A full plane load of low fair passengers remunerates the airline, and only indirectly the inherent costs. These costs are bourne by every airline just as any business has to pay its suppliers out of its income.

Any airline that fails to do so will go out of business. In a free market economy the rules of the market apply with some exceptions, so I presume that costs are reduced because competition drives the costs down and/or market forces do, which is the other side of the same coin.

But – perhaps my analysis is simplistic and I would welcome enlightenment as I have always thought Freddie Laker was a fine model.

For a country so obsessed with the weather we really are useless at dealing with it.

Snow, rain, cold, heat, wind… anything seems to grind us to a halt these days. I think it’s more to do with how defeatest we have become as a nation.

The scandinavians would laugh if they saw us at the moment, they just dig their way out and get on with it.

1L.

Yes that is quite true but there are two reasons for it. Firstly we have to accept that we cannot afford to invest in the levels of snow clearance equipment other countries can justify because their exeperience of snow is so much more frequent. Secondly we are ruled by “Elf ‘n’ Safety, m’lud and so cannot afford the endless cases for compensation by every worker who tore his trousers, bruised his bum, cut his arm, etc etc due to accidents in the snow and ice.

In the thick snow of 1971 ( I think it was ) in a small hamlet in Cambridgeshire the post, milk, groceries and bread were delivered, the village shop never closed not did any local schools despite several power cuts. Children wore wamer clothing and candles were an adventure. Buses didn’t run until roads were cleared so people walked.

I suspect that Old Shape represents a helluva lot of people, more timid than he to express their views on the current state of the UK.

I think there is deep sense of loathing for the government and a great deal of suspicion of the likelihood of the opposition having the guts to change much. Hence the recent poll results.

There is little of the optimism, if any, of the type Bumblebee mentioned because most people feel they have nothing to feel optimistic about. It is dawning on most people that the last 12 years have left us in very, very deep poo and many of us we will go to our graves without seeing much change. Not a prospect I relish.:mad:

“Women! Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.” It has been attributed endlessly – I wonder who first coined it.