Ryanair and the Irish

KnotABother

So I suppose we have all heard the rumour and innuendo about Ryanair not hiring Irish pilots for quite a while now. I have to say that I know a fair few people qualified and of those who have applied to Ryanair all the non-irish nationals have got at least the CV request from CAE but the Irish have not heard a thing after the initial application. Coupling that with the reports that there have been no Irish candidates at the screenings held in Dublin it seems there may be some meat to the rumour after all.

What do people think?

Preset No.3

I think you are trolling!

Hang on, let me ask the 6 or 7 irish guys I know that fly for Ryanair!

gugleguy

I smell an AH thread.

fr336

Preset No.3 wrote: »

I think you are trolling!

Hang on, let me ask the 6 or 7 irish guys I know that fly for Ryanair!

He was talking about them hiring currently and recently. Not everything without a hint of the status quo position is trolling.

I hear a good few Irish voices on bases out of Ireland when I do be listening to air traffic control. Like I hear Scottish voices out of Scottish bases or English voices out of English bases.

Stovepipe

He's not entirely wrong and he's not entirely right. Ryanair are fed up having to deal with grief from Irish pilots who have discovered that it's a very hard way to be a pilot and earn a living, but they still keep applying in their droves from every country you can think of. Ryanair's main problem right now is a serious haemorrage of pilots/engineers/ramp staff/IT people to competitors like Norwegian.

christy c

Stovepipe wrote: »

Ryanair's main problem right now is a serious haemorrage of pilots/engineers/ramp staff/IT people to competitors like Norwegian.

How accurate is that? I'm not trying to attack you but I've been reading these types of comments for that last number of years and so far Ryanair seem to be doing fine, at least to the casual observer.

Stovepipe

Of late, 400 approx of all grades and trades have left to go to the competitor, from various bases. that's from a source high up in the FR foodchain.

Preset No.3

Is there anybody who isn't irish working for Fly Dubai? 😝

738 type rated!!!

donkey balls

I work in the industry and have friends who fly for FR who confirmed to me about the non hiring of Irish cadets since late 2011,The reason I was told was that the Irish lads wanting to join a union or something along those lines.
Over the last few years any cadet I bumped in to doing their line training were mainly from the UK and main land Europe,The current crop of Irish FR pilots are based all over Europe the weird thing is you have British pilots based here and Irish ones based in the UK.
Yet they are not allowed to swap base why is that? Would it not make better sense to have UK pilots based near their home and the same for the Irish lads.

christy c

christy c wrote: »

How accurate is that? I'm not trying to attack you but I've been reading these types of comments for that last number of years and so far Ryanair seem to be doing fine, at least to the casual observer.

I know of many pilots who have left for Norwegian and Easyjet.

KnotABother

Preset No.3 wrote: »

I think you are trolling!

Hang on, let me ask the 6 or 7 irish guys I know that fly for Ryanair!

Since mid 2011 very few if any Irish pilots seem to have been hired by Ryanair. Like I said I know a pool of a fair few Irish guys and gals who qualified in that time period and only the non irish nationals have even got the CV request from CAE.

It seems that while it was a trashy rumour for a good while the states and evidence seem to back it over time.

christy c

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I know of many pilots who have left for Norwegian and Easyjet.

How serious is it though? A picture of doom and gloom has been painted for a long time now

KnotABother

christy c wrote: »

How serious is it though? A picture of doom and gloom has been painted for a long time now

Not too serious. While they have a lot of guys leaving there is a steady flow entering from the bottom. They are taking on a lot of continental europeans. However they are looking at becoming desperately short of Captains in the next few years due to the high numbers of FOs who leave before they get command.

Stovepipe

FOs don't want command because it invariably means an immediate transfer, at their expense, to foreign parts, usually somewhere distant, hastily vacated by the previous Captain.Which means that any trip home takes a huge hit on their meagre income and the pay for new captains is basically ****e for the level of responsibility. Also, there are aspects of the contract that are unacceptable to many......it's serious when an entire shift of engineers at one base crosses the ramp to join the competitor; as well as entire rosters of load supervisors and office staff, such as IT people.
The alleged friendly new Ryanair does not seem to have reached the staff.

christy c

Stovepipe wrote: »

FOs don't want command because it invariably means an immediate transfer, at their expense, to foreign parts, usually somewhere distant, hastily vacated by the previous Captain.Which means that any trip home takes a huge hit on their meagre income and the pay for new captains is basically ****e for the level of responsibility. Also, there are aspects of the contract that are unacceptable to many......it's serious when an entire shift of engineers at one base crosses the ramp to join the competitor; as well as entire rosters of load supervisors and office staff, such as IT people.
The alleged friendly new Ryanair does not seem to have reached the staff.

Time will tell then, I think I first saw this type of argument surface in 2005 and here they are almost 10 years later still going. No doubt FR do seem to have issues but I doubt they're as bad as they are made out (Not doubting your figures here)

I would guess FR management see these losses as "acceptable" and when they rise to unacceptable levels either T&Cs will change or pay will go up.

Tenger

christy c wrote: »

....I would guess FR management see these losses as "acceptable" and when they rise to unacceptable levels either T&Cs will change or pay will go up.

I'm pretty sure that FR mgmt are more accurately aware of the onging issues with staff retention than any anedotal/sescond-hand data can prove. And I would agree, until this lack of retention becomes an issue FR will accept it as part of the business model that they operate. FR know that they are many people out there who want a job and can take advantage of that situation.

Stovepipe

They are perfectly aware of it and the middle management are doing a fire-fighting job to keep the place going. It is part of the low-cost regime, that poor staff retention is regarded as par for the course and other airlines operate in the same fashion, but when critical posts (especially post-holding jobs) are falling vacant and they rush frantically to fill them, then the system is not working. I'd be curious to see the IAA reaction to it.

folbotcar

Ignore Stovepipe's comments at your peril. He is definitely someone who has his ear to the ground so to speak.

In terms of staff retention I come across this again and again both in and out of aviation and unfortunately whether or not management is aware of it they rarely seem to be able to grasp the warnings from the shop floor. Often they prefer to blame lower management for the constant departure of key staff. I've sat in a meeting with a manager whose stated simply: 'If you don't like the way we do things here you can always leave.' With the implication that we can always replace you. People did leave in droves with a consequent loss of experience. Right now I'm personally aware of two situations where this is happening. Once the word is out on these companies either no one applies for the advertised job or those who do are fundamentally unsuitable. Inevitably this leads to problems.

So it's not just Ryanair. Poor staff retention is par for the course in certain roles and frankly pilots fall into that category. In fact Ryanair make money from training pilots so poor pilot retention is regarded as a positive in terms of the bottom line. It has been said that MoL actually owns some of the simulators used for training so he might have a personal stake in the continuing throughput of pilots.

Where it falls down is when they can't keep Captains onboard. The loss of that experience will be felt eventually. If you can't keep post holders you're in trouble.

As for whether or not Ryanair hires Irish pilots or not. There is too much smoke not to think there's a fire out there. Certainly it's no advantage to be Irish when applying to Ryanair, not any more. I know of some who have got in during the last few years but many seem to be 'special' cases.

But before anyone shouts 'discrimination' it's worth pointing out that Ireland only has a small pool of potential applicants to start with and frankly many of them are not suitable or ready. That narrows the pool quite a lot.

I also think it's fair to say that Ryanair's recruitment team would have a fairly good idea of the type of candidate they are looking for by now. They've put a lot through their hands at this stage. They know who they are looking for and if you don't tick all the boxes your CV goes straight into the bin no matter your nationality.

In the long run the new nicer Ryanair mentality will have to be transferred to the staff. Disgruntled and disenchanted staff have a habit of working against their employer. That's not good for the bottom line.

Stovepipe

That's absolutely it. Shedding experience is not good for a company as it takes years for the experience to be built back up again, regardless of what the company actually does. We found out the hard way when the pool of A320 rated engineers dried up fairly quickly, inside a matter of months. Lads had gone abroad for work or jacked in aviation altogether. As for potential pilots, folbotcar is right when he says that Ireland generates only a small pool of pilots annually and abroad, foreign companies are perfectly willing and able to discriminate against Irish or English candidates.
the bottom line is: treat your staff decently and they will go the extra mile for you. treat them like dirt and they will react negatively.

donkey balls

Stovepipe wrote: »

That's absolutely it. Shedding experience is not good for a company as it takes years for the experience to be built back up again, regardless of what the company actually does. We found out the hard way when the pool of A320 rated engineers dried up fairly quickly, inside a matter of months. Lads had gone abroad for work or jacked in aviation altogether. As for potential pilots, folbotcar is right when he says that Ireland generates only a small pool of pilots annually and abroad, foreign companies are perfectly willing and able to discriminate against Irish or English candidates.
the bottom line is: treat your staff decently and they will go the extra mile for you. treat them like dirt and they will react negatively.

100% spot on I worked for a UK PLC that was based here they treated the staff like dirt and the contempt they had for us was unreal,The mgmt in my opinion at the time were up their own arse and looked down on us mere mortals they wouldn't even say hello to the staff.
The thing is it costs nothing to be polite to say hello or good morning etc,This bred resentment among the staff including my self who just did there job and nothing extra and went home once our hours were up.
Were I work now the mgmt are bang and polite no looking down their nose at you the staff all go the extra mile and everyone is happy.

TheBoss11

AFTA post at least every 2-3 months an artical on Facebook about their recent irish graduates getting employment in FR

KnotABother

TheBoss11 wrote: »

AFTA post at least every 2-3 months an artical on Facebook about their recent irish graduates getting employment in FR

I saw one such article and asked a friend of mine in the know down there if they were Irish and he said both the guys featured in the article were from the UK. From what I'm told AFTA graduates along with other schools have hit a wall with FR too. That being said there are some special cases where people have got in but they were "well in the know" shall we say. That numbers in the 1s and 2s however.

To elaborate on my OP. I know 30+ graduates off hand 10 or so being non irish and all received CV requests within 2 weeks of the initial application. All the Irish(from 4 different FTOs) got no reply at all after the initial application. Similar and in some cases far more hours amongst the Irish guys and girls but not a peep from CAE. To me it tells a story sadly...

owenc

The Southern Irish seem to have this attitude where they only ever fly on their own airline and expect to be treated like gold just because of this.

topper75

Too right owenc. Aran islanders used to be the ultimate brats on Aer Arann flights.

donvito99

owenc wrote: »

The Southern Irish seem to have this attitude where they only ever fly on their own airline and expect to be treated like gold just because of this.

And yet you lose your mind when Shannon - an airport in the Republic of Ireland - gets preference over Belfast with Aer Lingus - an Irish airline and former 'flag carrier' - flights...


*ducks for cover*

Stovepipe

The Lingus brand carries a very envied passenger loyalty that has to be seen to be believed. I thought it was just oul guff until I joined the company and heard it from passengers first hand. Ask an cabin crew member or pilot, they'll tell you.

Tenger

owenc wrote: »

The Southern Irish seem to have this attitude where they only ever fly on their own airline and expect to be treated like gold just because of this.

I assume you are referring to EI rather than FR, CityJet or AerContractors?
(Can we still consider Stobart to be 'Irish'?)

Considering your previously posted experience of 'southern Irish' airports and people, making such a sweeping statement borders on farce.

Preset No.3

owenc wrote: »

The Southern Irish seem to have this attitude where they only ever fly on their own airline and expect to be treated like gold just because of this.

A post from someone north of the border that edges on the side of bigotry.

olive20

EYE