Originally posted by steve rowell
You can tart it up as much as you like, it’s still a Russian Clap trap

Aw come off it Steve! Geez. In all the many flights in my log book (most on Russian types by the way) the only time I encountered a potentially life threatening situation was on board a DC9-30 which suffered sudden de-pressurisation followed by an emergency descent over central Europe. Do I brand all US aircraft “clap traps” as a result? No, because they’re not, and the same applies to Russian machines. By the way, the IL96 is on a par with most Boeing and Airbus products in most areas. It just lacks the funding for us to see more of them around.

Lurve that aeroplane…..still not sure about that livery though!

The third engine on the TU154 is not just there for take off and in usual circumstances the aircraft operates using all 3 engines in the flight regime. A failure such as this would not unduly compromise the 154s safety even with full payload. Jeanske, Russian pilots are no more “irresponsible” than any other nationality, you’ll find similarly irresponsible pilots in all countries.
Generalisation is easy I guess, especially when the crew/plane are Russian.

I still stick to the views that I hold on LoCos and these are views that I’ve held over many years. I was not “matter of factly” predicting a return to the so called “bad old days” in my post, I suspect (not predict) that post LoCo fares will return to a sensible
and sustainable level. That has to be good for the aviation industry as a whole doesn’t it? As I’ve said in earlier posts-Enjoy trips to Dublin or wherever for £1.50 plus this plus that while you can, that cheap seat may well have cost one of our aviation colleagues their job! I just can’t see it lasting for ever.

People, if like me you’ve no time for Ryanair then the best way to show them that is just don’t fly with ’em. I never have and never will. Their “business model”, founded on a house of cards, relies on a constantly high load factor. Take it away from them! There is always another way to get there. Sooner or later all air travellers will have to resume paying a realistic, not excessive, rate to fly and that WILL come. Ryanair splitting hairs over wether or not it should do its duty by less abled passengers in order to maintain its artificially low cost mantle, quite honestly stinks!

Support your full service carriers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If the Ryanair fares were realistic in the first place (ie: not the result of subsidies, various operational discounts and deals etc etc) then, as with those “big nasty old full service carriers”, the airline would not find it necessary to dodge its responsibilities to its fare paying passengers. At the end of the day Ryanair was responsible for the carriage of Mr.Ross and his welfare from the moment he checked in until he was safely inside the terminal at the point of arrival! There is no great mystery here, its called customer service, something that Ryanair has always seemed to have had a problem in both understanding and providing. I don’t have much time for the BAA, but I really don’t see why it should be their responsibility to provide this service for Ryanair or any other carrier, they never have done in the past as it comes under the remit of an airlines service to its customers and fares are calculated accordingly, well in the real world anyway. Can you imagine the outcry from Ryanair if the BAA was to provide this service and then increase Ryanairs charges at their airports to cover it? And the fact that they are going to appeal, in my opinion beggars belief! Its not good enough to cover all this kind of thing by saying “O’Leary is a great businessman and the fares are cheap” etc. It looks as though many of Ryanairs chickens are coming home to roost and not before time. Well done Mr.Ross, a victory for common sense and for the rights and decent treatment of the less able! This sort of thing does our industry no favours.

Anyone can operate an airline fed by subsidies – BA did it for years!