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Ryanair Depressurisation
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You can't pay people on the basis of something that might happen but has a greater chance of not happening (as is always pointed out) that would be impossible as a business model
This isn't a normal business but that's exactly what happens in it. Why do you think airliners have cabin crew on board..?
It's not to sell you tea and coffee, they could easily put vending machines on board or at the departure gate, it's because it's a regulatory requirement to have trained people to man the doors in case of an emergency evacuation which is something that almost never happens and most of us will thankfully never experience....0 -
billy few mates wrote: »This isn't a normal business but that's exactly what happens in it. Why do you think airliners have cabin crew on board..?
It's not to sell you tea and coffee, they could easily put vending machines on board or at the departure gate, it's because it's a regulatory requirement to have trained people to man the doors in case of an emergency evacuation which is something that almost never happens and most of us will thankfully never experience....
Not sure what your point is tbh.0 -
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FrancieBrady wrote: »No. I was suggesting paying people a retainer to deal with a scenario that it was said does happen - passengers being stranded at an airport they hadn't paid to be at.
Which is "something that might happen but has a greater chance of not happening".0 -
Which is "something that might happen but has a greater chance of not happening".
Well yes, if you want to look at it that way.
So pay staff a retainer to mobilise to an airport in that event (like fire crews are paid in rural areas etc) and pay pilots who get planes down safely a bonus.
Would that not keep everyone happy or happier?0 -
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FrancieBrady wrote: »I never quite got the fuss there is made about people doing the jobs they were trained to do, and I presume pilots are trained to deal with depressurisation.
Like anyone else, if they do something of extra benefit (or do something well) to pax and the airline, maybe airlines could look at bonuses? Or maybe they exist already.
Let's examine this a bit for a moment, bear with me those that operate regularly on a flight deck, but some of this needs to be said.
First, while yes, it is possible to train for a decompression, in a normal simulator, which is where this is likely to be done, you can only train for some of it, in that unless it is a very specialised simulator (not available to airlines as such) you can't train for the issues around the (possibly sudden) pressure change that occurs with this event. So, yes you get to put the mask on, and deal with that aspect of it, but the training can't cover the physical effects of the pressure change, the crew will be feeling the same issues as the passengers, and having to deal with those issues while continuing to fly the aircraft. There is no way that any training that is provided by the airlines can prepare pilots for the actual effects of sudden decompression, both in terms of the effects and the disorientation of the event.
So, it's late at night, you're established in the cruise, and possibly chatting about almost anything while monitoring the flight progress. Depending on how many hours and sectors you've flown that day, you may well be starting to feel the effects of the length of the day etc. It's not a high workload section of the flight, so a more relaxed period than would be the case during take off or landing.
Now, without much (or any) warning, you either get a cabin altitude warning as the cabin goes above the alarm setting value, or you get a master warning or caution depending on what's failed. In this event, the implication is that it was a relatively quick depressurisation, which is why there are nose and ear bleeds. The crew may have heard, or felt, the sound of the failure if it was an outflow valve failing, or if an air duct blew off. Either way, their attention is suddenly very focussed on the fact that something has gone wrong. They don't know at this stage what's happened, or how serious it is, just that there's a problem that has to be sorted, PDQ.
Their first and critical action on identifying a pressurisation issue is to get their own masks on, in that at higher cruise levels, if the decompression is fast, you don't have long to get your mask on and remain conscious, spend too long working out what's failed, or actually getting the mask on, and you may not take too much part in what follows.
So you've got your mask on, and are now working out what's happened, what the implications are, and what to do about it, and your ability to communicate with your colleague is now being hampered by the mask.
The old saying comes to play, Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Work out what's failed, how to deal with it, and then let ATC know there's a problem, and start an emergency descent to a safe altitude, then decide if you need to land as soon as possible, (regardless of where), or at an acceptable airfield, or at a suitable airfield.
Then having made that decision, and remember there's also fault finding going on to work out if this is a fixable issue, or if it means an emergency diversion, they then have to decide where to land (ideally a company airfield, as they have the ability to handle the aircraft, and hopefully fix what ever has failed), and having decided where, sort out the "how" of getting there, and then flying the appropriate approach, having first looked at the procedure from the appropriate sections of the manual or electronic flight manual, and done the relevant briefing to make sure that both crew members know what the other one is going to be doing.
Oh, and by the way, depending on where you are, there's the subtle aspect of making sure you don't bump into a large lump of cumulo granite, as you're going to be operating at a much lower level than is normal, and in parts of the world, the ground sticks up a long way, and bumping into a piece of it would tend to spoil your day more than a little.
After all of that is complete, the "only" thing left to do is to get it to the intended landing location, and put it on the ground.
That's assuming that everything else is still working correctly, and there are no other issues to affect things, like hydraulic or electrical failures, or similar, depending on what caused the original problem.
So, that's a slightly simplified overview of what happens when the pressurisation system fails, there's a lot to do in a relatively short period of time, so the fact that it was a while before the crew made an announcement comes as no surprise, they had more than a few other issues to resolve before they had the spare capacity to have time to make that announcement.
After landing, the first issue would be for the Fire and rescue services to examine the aircraft on the runway to determine if an emergency evacuation was required, or if it was safe to allow the aircraft to move to a stand or other safe location.
Then the "normal" airport services could become involved, assuming that there were actually staff available to deal with it, if there were no arrivals or departures scheduled for a number of hours, there's a strong chance that there would have been no ramp agents still on duty, the handling companies don't have staff sitting there in case of a diversion, so airfield operations staff or firecrew would have had to stand in to get equipment to the aircraft, albeit that the Ryanair 737's carry their own forward air stairs, which would have helped. After evaluation by medical services, the passengers could be allowed into the terminal, which at that time of night was probably also almost deserted, with very little in the way of services open.
So, I'm not at all surprised that some of the people on the flight were not happy about how things worked out, but the reality is that (a) it could have been a LOT worse than it was and (b) they were able to continue in a replacement aircraft in the morning.
So, the crew did an excellent job, and realistically, the airport didn't do a bad job, given the time of day that this happened at, and the fact that they didn't have a lot of time to get things into place to deal with it.
Some won't agree, but I don't think that they'd be prepared to pay the sort of (significant) sums that would be required to provide a faster or more "managed" response, the costs would be enormous for an event that happens very rarely.Shore, if it was easy, everybody would be doin it.😁
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My (censored) answer was far more succinct, Steve!0
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My (censored) answer was far more succinct, Steve!
My initial thoughts were very similar, but I decided that someone had to put up a post that explained why having hundreds of people sitting at work all over the place waiting just in case of a once in a blue moon emergency was never going to happen, and why.
Hopefully, it will stop some of the more absurd posts going forward, (and if it doesn't, we have alternatives)Shore, if it was easy, everybody would be doin it.😁
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Irish Steve wrote: »My initial thoughts were very similar, but I decided that someone had to put up a post that explained why having hundreds of people sitting at work all over the place waiting just in case of a once in a blue moon emergency was never going to happen, and why.
Hopefully, it will stop some of the more absurd posts going forward, (and if it doesn't, we have alternatives)
I have no idea why you felt the need to explain what pilots do when I have said a couple of times that I 'appreciate' what they did.
I even suggested that they get a 'bonus' for doing it.
And I never said there should be 'hundreds of people sitting at work waiting'.
Do you know what an 'on call rota' is?
A number of staff are 'on call' on a rotational basis to come in in the event of an emergency. Not a novel concept anywhere, but seems to be hard to understand the concept here.0 -
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The idea is not as crazy as you seem to think. Who do you think called in the German Red Cross on the night in question? Do you think they aren't paid for their services? And are they sitting around all day waiting for an emergency just like this? Clearly not. Maybe all that's needed is to pay them a few extra euros to have supplies of water on standby. It's not rocket science.Irish Steve wrote: »My initial thoughts were very similar, but I decided that someone had to put up a post that explained why having hundreds of people sitting at work all over the place waiting just in case of a once in a blue moon emergency was never going to happen, and why.
Hopefully, it will stop some of the more absurd posts going forward, (and if it doesn't, we have alternatives)0 -
The idea is not as crazy as you seem to think. Who do you think called in the German Red Cross on the night in question? Do you think they aren't paid for their services? And are they sitting around all day waiting for an emergency just like this? Clearly not. Maybe all that's needed is to pay them a few extra euros to have supplies of water on standby. It's not rocket science.
I was of the impression Red Cross responders are volunteers0 -
The idea is not as crazy as you seem to think. Who do you think called in the German Red Cross on the night in question? Do you think they aren't paid for their services? And are they sitting around all day waiting for an emergency just like this? Clearly not. Maybe all that's needed is to pay them a few extra euros to have supplies of water on standby. It's not rocket science.
So many examples of this.
I could drive across Europe in a Scania or Volvo under warranty, have a breakdown or fault and bring the truck to any Scania dealer or affiliate and have it fixed and Scania or Volvo will work out the payment to the garage. It's an agreement among those garages to do this. I could even call out a breakdown crew.
I can even pay a premium if the truck is out of warranty for the service and convenience.
It's normal. And why is it offered? Because the customer is valued at the end of the day.
Why can't airports share the costs of something like this too? It is not exactly rocket science as they look after customers all the time.0 -
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FrancieBrady wrote: »I have no idea why you felt the need to explain what pilots do when I have said a couple of times that I 'appreciate' what they did.
I even suggested that they get a 'bonus' for doing it.
And I never said there should be 'hundreds of people sitting at work waiting'.
Do you know what an 'on call rota' is?
A number of staff are 'on call' on a rotational basis to come in in the event of an emergency. Not a novel concept anywhere, but seems to be hard to understand the concept here.
Even if they had staff on call what could they do in an airport late at night? They can't make food, so we now need caterers on standby, and they can't build hotels, so now we need empty hotels beside all airports for the rare time an aircraft declares an emergency. Are you willing to pay extra for the staff to be on call, who won't be able to do much anyway?0 -
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FrancieBrady wrote: »I have no idea why you felt the need to explain what pilots do when I have said a couple of times that I 'appreciate' what they did.
I even suggested that they get a 'bonus' for doing it.
And I never said there should be 'hundreds of people sitting at work waiting'.
Do you know what an 'on call rota' is?
A number of staff are 'on call' on a rotational basis to come in in the event of an emergency. Not a novel concept anywhere, but seems to be hard to understand the concept here.
I'm not responding to just your post, but to a number of posts that have suggested "options" for emergencies that are just not going to happen, for both cost and practicality reasons.
Most airports, and airlines, will have staff "on call" for dealing with emergencies.
For emergency services that are required airside, primarily the fire and medical emergencies, there are staff on site, working whenever the airport is open. There are then second level responders (such as Red Cross, Order of Malta, Civil Defence) that can be called in if the full time services are being stretched beyond their capabilities. That's fully understood, Dublin Airport has a standing agreement with Dublin Fire service to be able to call for additional resources in the event of certain types of emergency. The Airport will also have ramp staff to provide things like "follow me" vehicles. For some work, there will be aircraft maintenance engineers who are working overnight, and they will be suitably trained and able to assist in an emergency, even if the aircraft involved is not operated by "their" company.
Having said that, a more difficult area is second level services, operated by external contractors, both on the ramp, and inside the terminal areas, (such as catering) when I was working on the ramp at the airport, there were times of the day when there were no ramp agents "on call", simply because there was not the need to have people on call as such, in the 3 years I was there, there was only one event (9/11) where additional people were needed to deal with emergency diversions, and that happened during the day.
In the event of an overnight emergency, I'm sure that some of the managers could have been called in by the Airport managers, but once they arrived, it would have been a case of them then calling people they had phone numbers for, and hoping they would come in, there was no formal system for people being on call as such, and the total response time would not be quick in that case.
Having people "on call" does not mean however that there will be people on site in time to deal with an emergency if that emergency happens to a flight that's relatively close to the airport at the time of declaring emergency status. During night hours, the response time for non critical staff is likely to be between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the distance they have to travel to get to the airport.
Dublin and Shannon are both open 24/7/364, and have fire and medical cover, which has to be in place for them to remain open. They would however be dependent on calling in external resources for a major emergency. To the best of my knowledge, none of the handling agents have 24 hour cover for ramp agents, who do most of the "grunt" work related to steps, ground power, moving of aircraft between stands, and unloading bags.
The norm for handling agents is that they have staff available for ramp 1 hour before the first scheduled arrival, and until all departures have left, so there is a window at Dublin from around 01:00 to 04:30 where the only available ramp staff may be some of the people that handle cargo flights, depending on their scheduled arrival time.
The same will be true in the terminals, with the hours being different, they start earlier, as people are around from very early on, some even overnight, but the retail outlets, and services like airside security are definitely NOT 24 hours, there are very few airports that have full 24 hour cover for catering and the like, as the demand just is not there. So, an emergency arrival is not going to be able to just "arrive" and be processed in the same way as a routine scheduled flight.Shore, if it was easy, everybody would be doin it.😁
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FrancieBrady wrote: »The idea is not as crazy as you seem to think. Who do you think called in the German Red Cross on the night in question? Do you think they aren't paid for their services? And are they sitting around all day waiting for an emergency just like this? Clearly not. Maybe all that's needed is to pay them a few extra euros to have supplies of water on standby. It's not rocket science.
So many examples of this.
I could drive across Europe in a Scania or Volvo under warranty, have a breakdown or fault and bring the truck to any Scania dealer or affiliate and have it fixed and Scania or Volvo will work out the payment to the garage. It's an agreement among those garages to do this. I could even call out a breakdown crew.
I can even pay a premium if the truck is out of warranty for the service and convenience.
It's normal. And why is it offered? Because the customer is valued at the end of the day.
Why can't airports share the costs of something like this too? It is not exactly rocket science as they look after customers all the time.
I think more car break downs happen than plane break downs... you can’t compare air travel to cars, the economics are completely different. How many other cars are driving at night when your Volvo breaks down? Probably quite a few more than there are passengers in the air.
Back to your original point, are you suggesting that every airport stays open on a lesser scale throughout the entire night in case of an emergency aircraft turning up with injured pax (which is extremely rare) to help them? How many people would you put on a ‘rota’? You’d need to have dozens of staff ‘on call’ to deal with upwards of 200 people with care, complaints and the like. Therein lies another problem, you need a huge variety of staff available, from the airline, airport, ramp agents, ATC (not every field has 24hr ATC), all for a potential emergency some day? Sorry but I think that that’s absurd. You’d need a huge amount of staff ‘on call’ to make it in any way effective, and that is incredibly expensive for something that may very well never actually happen.0 -
Should they also have a standing reservation at all the local hotels to keep 100+ rooms available just in case an aircraft turns up during the night...?0
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No.billy few mates wrote: »Should they also have a standing reservation at all the local hotels to keep 100+ rooms available just in case an aircraft turns up during the night...?0 -
Irish Steve wrote: »I'm not responding to just your post, but to a number of posts that have suggested "options" for emergencies that are just not going to happen, for both cost and practicality reasons.
Most airports, and airlines, will have staff "on call" for dealing with emergencies.
For emergency services that are required airside, primarily the fire and medical emergencies, there are staff on site, working whenever the airport is open. There are then second level responders (such as Red Cross, Order of Malta, Civil Defence) that can be called in if the full time services are being stretched beyond their capabilities. That's fully understood, Dublin Airport has a standing agreement with Dublin Fire service to be able to call for additional resources in the event of certain types of emergency. The Airport will also have ramp staff to provide things like "follow me" vehicles. For some work, there will be aircraft maintenance engineers who are working overnight, and they will be suitably trained and able to assist in an emergency, even if the aircraft involved is not operated by "their" company.
Having said that, a more difficult area is second level services, operated by external contractors, both on the ramp, and inside the terminal areas, (such as catering) when I was working on the ramp at the airport, there were times of the day when there were no ramp agents "on call", simply because there was not the need to have people on call as such, in the 3 years I was there, there was only one event (9/11) where additional people were needed to deal with emergency diversions, and that happened during the day.
In the event of an overnight emergency, I'm sure that some of the managers could have been called in by the Airport managers, but once they arrived, it would have been a case of them then calling people they had phone numbers for, and hoping they would come in, there was no formal system for people being on call as such, and the total response time would not be quick in that case.
Having people "on call" does not mean however that there will be people on site in time to deal with an emergency if that emergency happens to a flight that's relatively close to the airport at the time of declaring emergency status. During night hours, the response time for non critical staff is likely to be between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the distance they have to travel to get to the airport.
Dublin and Shannon are both open 24/7/364, and have fire and medical cover, which has to be in place for them to remain open. They would however be dependent on calling in external resources for a major emergency. To the best of my knowledge, none of the handling agents have 24 hour cover for ramp agents, who do most of the "grunt" work related to steps, ground power, moving of aircraft between stands, and unloading bags.
The norm for handling agents is that they have staff available for ramp 1 hour before the first scheduled arrival, and until all departures have left, so there is a window at Dublin from around 01:00 to 04:30 where the only available ramp staff may be some of the people that handle cargo flights, depending on their scheduled arrival time.
The same will be true in the terminals, with the hours being different, they start earlier, as people are around from very early on, some even overnight, but the retail outlets, and services like airside security are definitely NOT 24 hours, there are very few airports that have full 24 hour cover for catering and the like, as the demand just is not there. So, an emergency arrival is not going to be able to just "arrive" and be processed in the same way as a routine scheduled flight.CoisFharraige wrote: »I think more car break downs happen than plane break downs... you can’t compare air travel to cars, the economics are completely different. How many other cars are driving at night when your Volvo breaks down? Probably quite a few more than there are passengers in the air.
Back to your original point, are you suggesting that every airport stays open on a lesser scale throughout the entire night in case of an emergency aircraft turning up with injured pax (which is extremely rare) to help them? How many people would you put on a ‘rota’? You’d need to have dozens of staff ‘on call’ to deal with upwards of 200 people with care, complaints and the like. Therein lies another problem, you need a huge variety of staff available, from the airline, airport, ramp agents, ATC (not every field has 24hr ATC), all for a potential emergency some day? Sorry but I think that that’s absurd. You’d need a huge amount of staff ‘on call’ to make it in any way effective, and that is incredibly expensive for something that may very well never actually happen.
So effectively what you are saying is the passenger has to suck it up if they are put down in an airport out of hours and that it is ok if some here call them 'gobdaws' and cranks if they complain.
You get the same type of dismissive comment when customer care fails in a delay/cancellation when there is no emergency and draws the same kind of complaints.
In the almost 50 years I have been flying that has been a less than rare experience for me, let me tell you.
Some airlines have been getting away with treating pax abysmally when they fail to get them to their destinations for a long time.0 -
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FrancieBrady wrote: »So effectively what you are saying is the passenger has to suck it up if they are put down in an airport out of hours and that it is ok if some here call them 'gobdaws' and cranks if they complain.
You get the same type of dismissive comment when customer care fails in a delay/cancellation when there is no emergency and draws the same kind of complaints.
In the almost 50 years I have been flying that has been a less than rare experience for me, let me tell you.
Some airlines have been getting away with treating pax abysmally when they fail to get them to their destinations for a long time.
In 50 years of motoring, I've ended up on the hard shoulder of a Motorway on 2 occasions, and on both, the response time to get to me was in excess of 2 hours.
In over 30 years of flying, I've ended up being diverted on a few occasions, usually because of weather, and delayed several times.
When we got diverted, we were then sitting at the arrival airport for quite a while waiting for a coach to take us to our intended destination, and that was during the day, and not at a weekend.
Like it or not, when something exceptional happens to a flight, or any journey, it will take time to get a response to that problem into place, simply because the companies providing the services have to mobilise people, and equipment, the people that deliver the service are not usually sitting there waiting for the phone to ring.
Some people will complain regardless of how well the situation is handled, and in some cases, it may well be appropriate to complain, if the service provided is not effective. I spent 8 hours in Gatwick, flying with BA to Dublin, and in that time, we had nothing. No information, no support, no services of any sort, and we knew more about the problem than the airport, thanks to social media. That was unacceptable.
In another forum on this site, there were reports recently about problems as a result of a train being stopped between Malahide and Clongriffin. The response to that took a long time to put into place, as did the response to a derailment at Dun Laoghaire a few weeks earlier.
The same happens with coaches and buses, if a breakdown occurs, the response takes time.
Some of the comments here have been dealt with accordingly, they were not acceptable. Some of the attitudes were also unacceptable, and have also been dealt with.Shore, if it was easy, everybody would be doin it.😁
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Irish Steve wrote: »In 50 years of motoring, I've ended up on the hard shoulder of a Motorway on 2 occasions, and on both, the response time to get to me was in excess of 2 hours.
In over 30 years of flying, I've ended up being diverted on a few occasions, usually because of weather, and delayed several times.
When we got diverted, we were then sitting at the arrival airport for quite a while waiting for a coach to take us to our intended destination, and that was during the day, and not at a weekend.
Like it or not, when something exceptional happens to a flight, or any journey, it will take time to get a response to that problem into place, simply because the companies providing the services have to mobilise people, and equipment, the people that deliver the service are not usually sitting there waiting for the phone to ring.
Some people will complain regardless of how well the situation is handled, and in some cases, it may well be appropriate to complain, if the service provided is not effective. I spent 8 hours in Gatwick, flying with BA to Dublin, and in that time, we had nothing. No information, no support, no services of any sort, and we knew more about the problem than the airport, thanks to social media. That was unacceptable.
In another forum on this site, there were reports recently about problems as a result of a train being stopped between Malahide and Clongriffin. The response to that took a long time to put into place, as did the response to a derailment at Dun Laoghaire a few weeks earlier.
The same happens with coaches and buses, if a breakdown occurs, the response takes time.
Some of the comments here have been dealt with accordingly, they were not acceptable. Some of the attitudes were also unacceptable, and have also been dealt with.
Accept all you say above, but far too often people are left high and dry and complaints are treated like dirt.0 -
According to FR24, the plane concerned flew to Stansted from Hahn this afternoon, not in revenue service mind.0
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According to FR24, the plane concerned flew to Stansted from Hahn this afternoon, not in revenue service mind.
Wonder if a test flight or heading back into service from STN. Flew at a low max altitude of FL240 compared to 320-340 which Ryanair sched flights on this route generally fly according to FR24 - do you think it could be altitude limited ?0 -
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Possibility that the cabin and crew oxygen systems have yet to be refilled/replaced/repaired/cleaned, which may not have been possible at Hahn, so in that case, they'd have to remain below FL250 in order to be able to get down to FL100 within an approved time if there was a repeat of the failure.Shore, if it was easy, everybody would be doin it.😁
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The crew oxygen system is gaseous and can be easily replenished, in the cabin they have single shot chemical oxygen generators which would need to be replaced before next flight. There's one in each PSU so roughly about 70 required including the lavs. The problem is these things are classed as dangerous goods for shipping and can't be transported by air (Google ValuJet). They're not the sort of thing you'd have lying around at outstations so you'd likely always have to do a ferry flight back to base to have them replaced.
The low level flight also suggests possible structural damage with a one off approval to ferry for repair but that's just my guess...0 -
Aren't they a bit high for doing that, as they would still be pressurised.The low level flight also suggests possible structural damage with a one off approval to ferry for repair but that's just my guess...
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Aircraft back in revenue service this morning0
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Any info on what caused the depressurisation?0
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