Ryanair Strike implications re Cancellations NO INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS POSTS

devnull

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

That makes a lot of sense and Ryanair needs more standby crews if they want to continue with the strategy of high punctuality and availibility

But actually having too many standby crews are part of the problem, because no airline is going to actually employ crews simply to be standby crews without having an assurance that they are going to be flying, especially if they are only paid for hours worked, no staff will agree to that.

Ryanair has traditionally gone out of it's way to avoid cancellations and cancels very few flights in comparison with it's competitiors and that itself has come back to bite them here. They've kept operating flights using additional crews even when it's not really effiecent in terms of hours said crews accure to keep their punctuality rate high and their cancellations low.

For example, I've been at many a disrupted airport where many carriers have cancelled a large number of flights because of operational issues which are almost always crew hour related and Ryanair have ran everything by subbing in several extra crews, that's great for the customers because they have a flight that other airlines don't, but overall it costs Ryanair far more pilot hours than it would have done had their been no disruption.

Now certainly Ryanair would have built into their rostering that all staff would average a certain number of hours worked as subbed in crews and working as standby crew. What i suspect has happened here is that the model allowed for staff to work an average of a certain amount of hours based on historical reporting and at some point in the year it was looking like that the staff may go past that based on current hours.

At which point the company really should have started to cancel the odd flight and sub in less standby crews to try and claw some of that back, but I suspect what they did was look at their models and say, yes we've used more to this point than we said we would, but history shows them that the above forecast use of standby crews will probably balance out later in the year.

I suspect that it hasn't balanced out and it's got to the point where it has reached critical levels and the standby hours logged by pilots are so high that Ryanair pilots collectively simply do not have enough hours left before reaching their limit to offer the same kind of coverage that they have to date so they had to either almost fully dispense with standby crews and suffer massive schedule disruption each time an incident happens or cancel a few flights to give them breathing room.

Add to all of this the change of leave calendar and what you've effectively got is a roster system that was designed for a different leave system not fit for purpose for a transitional period to a new system, a tendancy to put short term customer service (higher punctuality, less cancellations) before the long term sustainability of the accured pilot hours and a disruptive summer with ATC and Weather issues and it's a perfect storm.

But ultimately one Ryanair should have took action on earlier even thogh I see why they didn't

toadfly

DivingDuck wrote: »

Very odd and annoying they haven't released flights for the rest of the week— surely those people need the information the most?

Exactly. So annoying. Would really put you off when they do this. I was one to always defend them, cheap flights you get what you pay for but this is ridiculous cancelling flights at such short notice.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

DivingDuck

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The sort who'd try to fly the plane themselves if it would save £27?

Peter Flynt

devnull wrote: »

It's also the way standby crews are used.

Airline A:
If a crew gets delayed will just get that crew to run late but still operate the same flights they are expected to do so, when they run out of hours every other flight after that is cancelled with the standard hours or perhaps a bit less logged.

Ryanair
If there are known delays they will sub an extra crew in, the problem with this is that you then have two crews who will be working hours rather than one, and the total hours will be much higher than airline A to run the same number of flights.

If you repeat the Ryanair approach on a large scale every time there is an airport closure or an ATC event or a strike at an airport or a diversion, what you are going to end up with is crew who are logging vastly more hours to keep the punctuality rate high and the cancellations down.

What happens is that over time the standby crews log hours that start to eat into the hours that were originally supposed to be planned for actual flying hours and then you have a crewing problem because they don't have enough hours to perform their original rostered flights.

Ryanair kept subbing in standby crews to recover punctuality and prevent cancellations to the point where it essentially ate into the hours that those crews needed to perform their rostered flying hours so they had no choice but to cancel flights.

They cannot get pilots to replace the staff who require holidays and the staff who have left Ryanair.

That's the reason why they're cancelling flights.

mikeysmith

Peter Flynt wrote: »

Ryanair treat their staff like sh*te.

You reap what you sow.

Their staff should now approach O'Leary and seek better terms and conditions of employment. Leave all of their planes on the ground if he doesn't comply.

They could if he hadn't already thought of that and got rid of the unions

arch_stanton

Anyone had any luck changing their flight online? I'm on the cancelled list for october but the online system is trying to charge me a change fee and the price difference to book a day earlier. The first chat guy sent me a cut and paste of cancel/rebook options. Back in the queue now :mad:

devnull

Peter Flynt wrote: »

They cannot get pilots to replace the staff who require holidays and the staff who have left Ryanair.

That's the ultimate simplistic way of looking into things, but it's not as simple as that there are a number of factors that are playing into this as I have explained in my above posts.

What they have been guilty of more than anything is that they have put short term customer service in relation to avoiding cancellation and keeping punctuality high before the long term management of hoursof their pilot groups which has allowed them to get into this mess.

If they had the same policy of many other airlines where they allow delays to build and not sub in standby crews they'd have more disappointed passengers and a worse punctuality records and more flights cancelled on a daily basis but ultimately they'd have more effiecent use of their pilots hours, essentially in this case they have got the balance wrong.

I've managed annualised hours scheme for a department in the past and I can tell you it is very tricky business, you are always balancing the need for enough staffing in the short term to meet your customers needs, without leaving you with a shortfall at the end of the year and it's bloody tough I can tell you because when you design these schedules at the start of the year you cannot predict what will happen in it.

The fact that they're transitioning to another system at the same time creates an added layer of complexity to it, which in this case seems to have been the straw that broke the camels back, I have no doubt like myself, they relied on previous years data and models for their forecast, the problem is that those forecasts and management processes were based on a April to March calendar year and were no longer going to work this year so they had to come up with something fresh, which clearly wasn't up to the job.

Stevek101

https://www.ryanair.com/content/dam/ryanair/2017sep/Cancellations%20Sept%202017.pdf

Very few cancellations ex Dub Wed - Sun.

Tenger

Peter Flynt wrote: »

They cannot get pilots to replace the staff who require holidays and the staff who have left Ryanair.

That's the reason why they're cancelling flights.

Nope. This is not a 'holiday', it's pilots grounded as they have reached their flight time hours limit.

Peter Flynt

Tenger wrote: »

Nope. This is not a 'holiday', it's pilots grounded as they have reached their flight time hours limit.

That is actually not the case but even if it were the reason for the cancellations remain the same:

Ryanair are short of staff for the bookings they're taking. Hence the cancellations.

arch_stanton

arch_stanton wrote: »

Anyone had any luck changing their flight online? I'm on the cancelled list for october but the online system is trying to charge me a change fee and the price difference to book a day earlier. The first chat guy sent me a cut and paste of cancel/rebook options. Back in the queue now :mad:

Got left "on hold" then disconnected again by the second agent but now they've updated the website to allow free changes, although I got hit for €2 to change the priority seat

Impetus

Stevek101 wrote: »

https://www.ryanair.com/content/dam/ryanair/2017sep/Cancellations%20Sept%202017.pdf

Very few cancellations ex Dub Wed - Sun.

I have looked through the lists briefly, and they seemed to have made the seats 'sold out' on flights appearing over the coming week or so on the Navitaire database that deals with reservations. However, if one moves into October, for example, there are flights showing as cancelled on the lists of cancelled flights, with seats for sale at ryanair.com still.

I note that some of the lists are hosted at ryanair.com and others are hosted on Amazon AWS. The latter are not TLS certified by Ryanair.com. One assumes that they are legit!

<I snipped the belligerent anti-Ryanair rant>

martinbrendan@e

Flight to Stansted on October 1st cancelled, managed to change to a flight the previous evening but have to book an hotel. Can you claim compensation for the costs of the hotel ?

Impetus

Stevek101 wrote: »

https://www.ryanair.com/content/dam/ryanair/2017sep/Cancellations%20Sept%202017.pdf

Very few cancellations ex Dub Wed - Sun.

If I may so, "typical oirish insular attitude". I have 300 channels of TV from all over Europe - which I seldom watch, aside from Bloomberg and CNBC, and the Ryanair word is a story on virtually every channel - aside from some French TV channels carrying content for the under 5s at 07h in the morning.

This is not a case of 'there is no such think as bad publicity'. Call it an exception to the rule.

Time for Michael O'L to consider resigning. Give him more time for les Charolais et les chevaux.

Silverbling

What did he mean by buying back the pilots leave?

Impetus

martinbrendan@e wrote: »

Flight to Stansted on October 1st cancelled, managed to change to a flight the previous evening but have to book an hotel. Can you claim compensation for the costs of the hotel ?

If you had a pre-paid, can't cancel type hotel reservation, and can't use it now due to the FR cancellation that matches your arrival data at the hotel, the airline has to compensate you for the 'sunken cost'.

I don't know where this responsibility might end. Let's say you had reserved a private rocket trip to the moon, and travelled on Ryanair somewhere to join the rocket launch. Assume cost €400'000 for the rocket ticket. There would presumably be an obligation on you to mitigate your losses (eg take a private jet costing perhaps 5k to the rocket launch site), if no scheduled carrier was available. But certainly with a hotel, it is to be expected that after a flight one will be staying at a hotel. And weather or other similar events did not cause the cancellation of your flight.

This event is a victory for airlines such as Norwegian who treat their travel guest with respect. And presumably the same applies to Norwegian staff. Not to mention the free wifi.

Impetus

Silverbling wrote: »

What did he mean by buying back the pilots leave?

Section 12 of the Holidays Employees Act says "12.—Reward for work done by an employee during annual leave shall be irrecoverable."

Which is typical oirish vague statute law. (It does not appear to me to say that a company that pays an employee €€€€€€ extra to 'forget' their holiday entitlement shall be guilty of an offense with a fine of say 5% of the company revenues.)

I assume it means that if you do work over and above infringing into holiday leave, you have no legal right to payment. But if someone gives you a brown envelope containing 50 x €500 notes, you have no worries about getting your money for work done. However there is probably aviation law that would get in the way. If not, there should be. I am no expert in this.



http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1973/act/25/enacted/en/print#sec12

LiamaDelta

Impetus wrote: »

Section 12 of the Holidays Employees Act says "12.—Reward for work done by an employee during annual leave shall be irrecoverable."

Which is typical oirish vague statute law. (It does not appear to me to say that a company that pays an employee €€€€€€ extra to 'forget' their holiday entitlement shall be guilty of an offense with a fine of say 5% of the company revenues.)

I assume it means that if you do work over and above infringing into holiday leave, you have no legal right to payment. But if someone gives you a brown envelope containing 50 x €500 notes, you have no worries about getting your money for work done. However there is probably aviation law that would get in the way. If not, there should be. I am no expert in this.



http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1973/act/25/enacted/en/print#sec12

That's all irrelevant anyway. Pilots and cabin crew are limited in the number of hours they can fly in a given year it's not a question of being able to 'buy them back' or not.

Lapmo_Dancer

Good analysis:

https://ialpa.net/ialpa-analysis-of-ryanair-pilot-numbers-crisis/

devnull

Lapmo_Dancer wrote: »

Good analysis:

https://ialpa.net/ialpa-analysis-of-ryanair-pilot-numbers-crisis/

A representative body of pilots working for other airlines is not really an impartial source really though is it in the same way a Ryanair source is not impartial of other airlines.

L1011

Impetus wrote: »

Which is typical oirish vague statute law.

Spell the world properly and/or drop the attitude. Preferably both.

Lapmo_Dancer

devnull wrote: »

Lapmo_Dancer wrote: »

Good analysis:

https://ialpa.net/ialpa-analysis-of-ryanair-pilot-numbers-crisis/

A representative body of pilots working for other airlines is not really an impartial source really though is it in the same way a Ryanair source is not impartial of other airlines.

Lots of Ryanair pilots are IALPA members

IngazZagni

They have a staff shortage. That's a fact. The Irish Times reported that over 700 pilots left in the last financial year. That is not sustainable. One wonders that their experience levels must have gone through the floor.

The propaganda peddled by the Ryanair spin office is just a smokescreen. If any of them lose their job I'm sure North Korea have a position for them.

A Dub in Glasgo

devnull wrote: »

A representative body of pilots working for other airlines is not really an impartial source really though is it in the same way a Ryanair source is not impartial of other airlines.

It deals heavily with the Irish interpretation of calendar year with respect to EU regulations. In all my years working in the highly regulated railway industry, I have never heard anyone claim that the calendar year is April to March (most companies view that as the financial year and the calendar year has always been January to December)

Peter Flynt

devnull wrote: »

A representative body of pilots working for other airlines is not really an impartial source really though is it in the same way a Ryanair source is not impartial of other airlines.

Rather than attack the messenger what part of the message do you have fault with?

Peter Flynt

IngazZagni wrote: »

They have a staff shortage. That's a fact. The Irish Times reported that over 700 pilots left in the last financial year. That is not sustainable. One wonders that their experience levels must have gone through the floor.

The propaganda peddled by the Ryanair spin office is just a smokescreen. If any of them lose their job I'm sure North Korea have a position for them.

Why have these problems started in September?

Because the summer season is over and the schools are open.

Why are they ending in November?

Because business will pick up for the beginning of the Winter season prior to Christmas.

Ryanair are simply reducing hours so as to ensure their pre-Christmas schedule is not disrupted.

They are forced to do this because of a shortage of staff (pilots and cabin crew).

Ryanair are a huge airline carrying 115m passengers a year. I'd say they've reached a level whereby they cannot expand because there are only so many people out there prepared to tolerate they way they treat people.

Either O'Leary starts treating his staff with respect or he should F Off and retire on his billions and let the airline move on.

The Rape of Lucretia

Silverbling wrote: »

What did he mean by buying back the pilots leave?

Possibly that although they are contracted with a given number of annual leave days, if that is above the statutory minimum, they can be reduced to that statutory minimum by if both parties agree. If the financial incentive is enough, some pilots might be happy to do it.

Living Off The Splash

Even their website is not available as I type. Another schedule gone wrong.

"Sorry website is unavailable due to scheduled maintenance...."

Gamb!t

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

My flight in October is fine

Edit never mind.
How so,there is nothing on RA websites indicating October flight status for cancellations only up to Sept 28th ?