Ryanair Strike implications re Cancellations NO INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS POSTS

mr.anonymous

Stating crew holidays as a reason is misleading. The crews won't be on paid leave, they're unable to work due to being over FTLs.

Norwegian are taking their pilots. Ryanair crews already have a (self-funded) 737NG type rating, only have to do a short Operator Conversion Course (OCC) and then they can fly. They'll get a basic salary and sector pay instead of only being paid when flying.

Ryanair cabin crew can leave the same pay arrangements behind, as well as the Dalmac/CrewLink contracts and the pressure to achieve on board sales. Being forced to sell a meal deal and 8 scratch cards a day while being responsible for the safety of 189 pax pushes many to leave. These poor employment conditions extend to engineering too.

The Ryanair head office has minimal staff. Everyone is at their limit and the turnover and retention there is poor at best. The recent European ruling regarding contracts will affect them too.

I don't have access to the full Irish Times article above - what changes are the IAA imposing? Are there changes to the FTL rules?

billie1b

Wanderer78 wrote: »

I've been waiting for one of these planes to drop out of the sky due to a safety breach, such is the aggressive nature of their economic model, do you think this is a possibility compared to other airlines?

The Ryanair fleet is probably if not the best maintained fleet in the world, the engineers are simply amazing and will not let an aircraft dispatch with any type of safety issue, if the aircraft needs to be AOG'd it is straight away, same goes for the Captains, if they believe their aircrraft is not fit for service they call the engineers who will fix the problem.

howiya

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Stock buy back is very common with large floated companies, apparently many have been doing it a lot over the last few years, helping to drive up share prices globally

Large EUR cash deposits have been subject to zero and/or negative interest rates over the last few years. Much better option to buy back your shares than leave it in the bank

__..__

737max wrote: »

Once they are in to Winter schedule booking with them will be fine.
November and December should be fine.
September and October is a lottery(sic) as I mentioned before in this thread.

I wont be taking any chances. They need to announce ALL of their cancellations now in advance and guarantee that no other flights will be cancelled.
Thats the only way people can even contemplate booking with them now.
They need to tell people what flights are actually going to go ahead and remove the doubt.
Otherwise you are just throwing a dice when booking with them.
Much better off paying a few euro more for peace of mind.

737max

As a shareholder in Ryanair I approve of their buyback scheme. I don't want to be paying tax on divident so prefer to see a larger share price in the long term than an annual dividend. Hopefully one day I'll retire to a low tax country and avoid the tax on gain in share price although Mr. O'Leary's HR practices and their effect on my investment aren't pleasing me much at the moment.

737max

__..__ wrote: »

I wont be taking any chances. They need to announce ALL of their cancellations now in advance and guarantee that no other flights will be cancelled.
Thats the only way people can even contemplate booking with them now.
They need to tell people what flights are actually going to go ahead and remove the doubt.
Otherwise you are just throwing a dice when booking with them.
Much better off paying a few euro more for peace of mind.

They don't need to announce anything. They have fewer flights in winter so there is no resource crunch in Winter. Flying in Winter season will be fine and I'd be booking flights with them if I hadn't already booked loads of flights elsewhere for the remainder of the year. I'm currently planning my flights out to May of next year and will be interested to see if they reduce fares to stimulate demand.

flaneur

As a passenger, I am now unlikely to book with them as I don't know what's going to happen with my flight.

I think this is a PR disaster that could do them a lot of damage once the tabloids and other media really lay into them.

MadYaker

I fly with Ryanair a fair bit. Id say a mininum of 6 flights a year over the last 5 or 6 years or so and I have to say in the last 2 years their punctuality has gone to sh!t. More then half the flights I've been on in the last 2 years have been late, some by over 2 hours. Am I just unlucky or is that part of an overall trend?

Also, this is a problem that they should never have had in the first place, it's not as if it's something that can't be predicted.

__..__

737max wrote: »

They don't need to announce anything. They have fewer flights in winter so there is no resource crunch in Winter. Flying in Winter season will be fine and I'd be booking flights with them if I hadn't already booked loads of flights elsewhere for the remainder of the year. I'm currently planning my flights out to May of next year and will be interested to see if they reduce fares to stimulate demand.

If they want customers to be confident that they will be booking a flight that wont be cancelled at short notice I think they do need to do something.
People arent going to book flights that might not leave at a moments notice. No way.
Flying is all about confidence.

When people travel, they are booking not just a flight. They have all sorts of other things they have spent money on that will just be wasted and they will never get back if a flight is cancelled.
I will definitely not be booking anything with them until this is sorted out, no matter how cheap the flights are. No point having a cheap flight that might not be flying. And worse again when you are already abroad and your return flight gets cancelled.

737max

MadYaker wrote: »

I fly with Ryanair a fair bit. Id say a mininum of 6 flights a year over the last 5 or 6 years or so and I have to say in the last 2 years their punctuality has gone to sh!t. More then half the flights I've been on in the last 2 years have been late, some by over 2 hours. Am I just unlucky or is that part of an overall trend?

Also, this is a problem that they should never have had in the first place, it's not as if it's something that can't be predicted.

Are you flying out of Dublin. I'm getting delayed in Dublin a lot regardless of which airline I use.

737max

__..__ wrote: »

If they want customers to be confident that they will be booking a flight that wont be cancelled at short notice I think they do need to do something.

If they want to avoid massive EU261 compensation they need to cancel flights early.
They don't care about inconvenience to passengers but when passengers are paying less than 20 euro for a flight and leaves them with contingent liabilities running in to tens of millions of euro then they really need to start canceling the flights so that passengers can't book seats on the flights.

IrishHomer

I fly Ryanair to Spain about 12 times annually and I can't remember last time flight was late. On the other hand I recently flew Spain to Dublin and it was over an hour late taking off.

jimbojetdriver

<Airline bashing comment from wanderer78 snipped>
It's hard to say much on here as Ryanair have gone after people before for posting not so nice comments on other websites. I will say that the training I received there was second to none, excellent!  However I left a few years ago now so that may have changed with the amount of experience that has been lost.

There is rumor of a rather serious safety breach that happened but news of it never seemed to reach the surface. If it did happen it may have been related to the problems they are currently facing. I'll post the screenshot, just remember I'm in no way saying this happened for sure......

bk

Bob24 wrote: »

I actually have a Brazilian colleague at work (we work in IT) who told me Ryanair is also actively recruiting IT staff, marketing people, and customer service reps in Brazil.

I'm missing something here: while I find this qestionable I get that they are trying get staff from less well-off countries who will be ready to accept lower pay and poorer conditions than the local workforce, but why the seemingly strong focus on Brazil?

1123heavy wrote: »

Brazil have a booming economy with many highly skilled individuals in the workforce, I assume this played a part in that for the IT etc. For the pilots in particular there is a fairly large 737 operation in Brazil in the form of GOL airlines who easily have a pool of over 1500 737 pilots.

In addition to what 1123heavy says above, their is a very big Brazilian community living in Ireland now, in particular in Dublin. Lots of Brazilian shops, restaurants, Bars, bands visit here frequently and dance nights.

This along with Ireland being an English speaking destination makes it an attractive location for them.

BTW at least on the IT side, I don't expect that they are paying less or have worse conditions then local staff. The IT market is absolutely booming at the moment and it is becoming extremely difficult for all companies to hire. Ryanair wouldn't be able to hold onto them for more then 3 months if they weren't paying industry average, otherwise they would be quickly head hunted by other firms once here.

john boye

If this is going to drag on for 6 weeks then surely they can't keep spinning the annual leave yarn? Can't imagine the press will be long getting hold of what's really going on?

The Rape of Lucretia

john boye wrote: »

If this is going to drag on for 6 weeks then surely they can't keep spinning the annual leave yarn? Can't imagine the press will be long getting hold of what's really going on?

It probably is an annual leave thing all right, but thats like giving the reason for your flight being delayed as 'operational reasons' - it doesnt tell the full story at all.
Its annual leave because they dont have enough staff : bad planning, have lost too many, havent recruited enough to allow for the needed holidays, gambled on operations running to perfection over the last few months and lost the bet (strikes, delays, other reasons), or whatever.
Bottom line, is they dont have enough staff due to 'annual leave requirements' alright, but because Ryanair ****ed up the planning for annual leave.

john boye

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

john boye wrote: »

If this is going to drag on for 6 weeks then surely they can't keep spinning the annual leave yarn? Can't imagine the press will be long getting hold of what's really going on?

It probably is an annual leave thing all right, but thats like giving the reason for your flight being delayed as 'operational reasons' - it doesnt tell the full story at all.
Its annual leave because they dont have enough staff : bad planning, have lost too many, havent recruited enough to allow for the needed holidays, gambled on operations running to perfection over the last few months and lost the bet (strikes, delays, other reasons), or whatever.
Bottom line, is they dont have enough staff due to 'annual leave requirements' alright, but because Ryanair ****ed up the planning for annual leave.

From everything I've seen it seems the real problem is crew hitting their FTLs at once after the summer period (partly due to crew leaving FR) rather than taking annual leave. It's not that they're on holiday, it's that they can't work.

irish_goat

Have a booking with Ryanair DUB-BHX return next month, hoping it'll be ok as its a short flight.

Planning to book flights to Czechia in January as well, do people reckon a good sale is due soon to restore demand?

The Rape of Lucretia

The airline is saying on Saturday 16 September: ”Cancellation notices for flights cancelled up to and including Wednesday 20 September have been sent to affected customers and we will continue to send regular updates."



http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ryanair-rights-400000-passengers-cancelled-flights-compensation-hotels-meals-caa-a7949916.html

dulchie75

I can't believe this is happening. We are due to fly from Knock to Lanzarote in 2 weeks time with flights costing over €700. I'm only hoping as there is only 1 flight a week from Knock we might get lucky. Surely they knew staff had to take AL!

Wynnie12

Peter Flynt wrote: »

This is where you end up when you mistreat your staff in a competitive market whilst asking for new recruits to pay €3000 for their own training.

€3,000 for cabin crew maybe, however new cadet pilots are required to pay €30,000 ex tax when joining Ryanair.

Why would you feel any loyalty to a company if you are required to pay this. Bond pilots instead and then you will be guaranteed 2,3, maybe 5 years of service from them

Gael23

Are they liable for the cost of passengers hotel bookings etc!

First Up

The Rape of Lucretia wrote:

The airline is saying on Saturday 16 September: â€Cancellation notices for flights cancelled up to and including Wednesday 20 September have been sent to affected customers and we will continue to send regular updates."

So about four days notice at best. Not great is it?

Masala

Have Ryanair a link for a list of affected flights???? Can someone post it as I am on a mobile phone as I write this

Many thanks

The Rape of Lucretia

First Up wrote: »

So about four days notice at best. Not great is it?

No indeed. Looks like those with the really short notice periods were those at the start of the process.

Hard to see it not killing Ryanairs sales for the next weeks, but sure thats factored into the financial hit they knew they would take by taking this step. People do forget in the long run though, so I couldnt see any long term loss of business for them. Dampening demand will probably seen as a good thing over the next month making it easier to minimise the number of passengers inconvenienced.

Jarring is Ryanair's brazen lack of acknowledgement and taking responsibility for their **** up here. The new customer friendly Ryanair being shown up for the cynical deception it was of just being a series of initiatives with eyes on the profit line rather than customer service. 'Customer Service' was only an O'Leary stunt for short term publicity and to distract and spin the changes.

__..__

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

No indeed. Looks like those with the really short notice periods were those at the start of the process.

Hard to see it not killing Ryanairs sales for the next weeks, but sure thats factored into the financial hit they knew they would take by taking this step. People do forget in the long run though, so I couldnt see any long term loss of business for them. Dampening demand will probably seen as a good thing over the next month making it easier to minimise the number of passengers inconvenienced.

Jarring is Ryanair's brazen lack of acknowledgement and taking responsibility for their **** up here. The new customer friendly Ryanair being shown up for the cynical deception it was of just being a series of initiatives with eyes on the profit line rather than customer service. 'Customer Service' was only an O'Leary stunt for short term publicity and to distract and spin the changes.

I think they may not have counted on people thinking this isnt only 6 weeks.
This could happen any time now. And the way its happened is the worst part. People wont forget that and will be very worried that it will happen in 8 or 12 weeks time again, so will just pay the slightly higher price to other airlines, just in case.
And if other airlines cop on and reduce their prices even more, it will gain them some new customers.

1123heavy

Masala wrote: »

Have Ryanair a link for a list of affected flights???? Can someone post it as I am on a mobile phone as I write this

Many thanks

https://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/ryanair-services/cancellations.php?date=2017-09-16

Only showing the cancellations as we approach each day for now

California Dreamer

JCX BXC wrote: »

That's a bit....extreme.

TBH it's like saying that if staff wanted to quit in a shop, then Christmas time would be their tipping point and make them quit.

It's not really but perhaps you have first hand knowledge of the conditions in which Ryanair staff work and could enlighten us further.

CelticRambler

__..__ wrote: »

I think they may not have counted on people thinking this isnt only 6 weeks.

I think they may not have understood how people plan their journeys and decide which route gives them the best value for money. Previously, I would have had no problem booking a connection through Stansted (for example) knowing that Ryanair always arrived on time, so it'd usually be quicker and cheaper for me to take two of their flights to get from A to C.

I don't have that assurance any more. It's the <80% puncutality that's the problem (nice to see my recent "heresay" experience confirmed) more than these cancellations, but it's another nail in the confidence coffin and I'm sure I won't be the only one in continental Europe thinking that alternative routes are beginning to make more sense.

Air France suffered this fate when their pilots decided on a campaign of random strikes a couple of years ago, and the company hasn't recovered yet - their passengers switched to the TGV, car-sharing (run by train company SNCF) and other airlines.

JCX BXC

California Dreamer wrote: »

It's not really but perhaps you have first hand knowledge of the conditions in which Ryanair staff work and could enlighten us further.

If anything, that should be asked of the original post?