This a great read about Ryan Air irishtimes.com

This a great read about Ryan Air irishtimes.com http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2012/0128/1224310781008.html

Great reading indeed, thanks for providing it !
A few passages I found most interesting :

The cabin crews’ target this week is to get passengers to spend €2 but, with the average spend currently just €1.54, they are under pressure. As the afternoon shift starts and blue-clad crews quietly file in to download and print their flight details from the company’s intranet, senior staff push them to sell more. Hampers, provided by suppliers at no cost to Ryanair, are promised to the month’s best performers.

For more than 15 years, the airline has relentlessly driven down fares across Europe as it fought countless battles for passengers and control of airports. And the war is nearly won. Ryanair employs more than 8,000 people and operates more than 1,600 flights a day from 47 bases across 27 countries, with a fleet of 250 Boeing 737-800s. Based on passenger numbers, it is the biggest international airline in the world.

FIRST UP IS the 9am conference call involving HQ and every airport Ryanair flies from. Today, there are 44 people on the call and each one has to detail how their staff got on handling this morning’s first wave of flights. It’s like a less glitzy version of Eurovision voting: “Good morning from Bergamo . . . This is Malaga calling . . . Calgari, you are online . . . Hello Dublin.” Every senior executive, including O’Leary, is rostered to host these calls regularly, so there is nowhere to hide for those who make mistakes.
Like sullen teenagers producing their homework for a scary teacher, airport staff must say how many planes departed; how many, if any, left late, how late and why; how many bags did not make it on to the planes, how many passengers were charged after failing to check in online, and how many bags were deemed too big for the cabin and checked in at a penal cost to passengers.

When asked why Ryanair has such a bad reputation, O’Brien points to its 75 million passengers as evidence to the contrary. “It is very easy to indulge a late-arriving passenger at a gate but, if you do that, you are delaying 180 other people and we will not do that,” he says. “Of course, people get pissed off but only when they are surprised. We want to be clear to people, that is not the same as being rude.”

Hangar Two, where Ryanair’s planes are serviced, is not cosy. It is massive. Christy Duffy, who has been promoted through the ranks to aircraft maintenance manager, has an easy manner but is fiercely loyal to his employer. And very conscientious.
“There are certain things you can cut back on, but you can’t cut back on maintenance,” he says. Planes are rigorously checked after 700 hours flying time and crews work night and day running through various checklists.
Fearing the worst does not keep O’Brien awake at night. “I have confidence in our systems, but that is not complacency,” he says. He knows that Ryanair, given its reputation, has more to lose than most airlines if something goes wrong. “If there is an accident, then people will say, ‘I told you so’, despite our safety record over many years.”
The (entirely wrong) idea that Ryanair cuts corners when it comes to safety is fed by misleading media reports. Late last year, a picture of crew applying tape to a window in a 737 cockpit appeared in newspapers and made it look as if the airline was holding planes together with sticky tape. The truth is that, when a window is bolted into place, a sealant is applied and covered in tape as it dries – a fact that got lost in the blizzard of headlines.

O’Leary has only himself to blame for negative press. Last week on The Late Late Show, he won himself few friends by saying the “customer is nearly always wrong”.

Eddie Wilson is an unusual human resources director, not least because he is responsible for the on-time jingles on every on-time flight – after pleas from staff he recently agreed to drop the wild applause that used to follow the jingle.
Like O’Leary and O’Brien, Wilson is loathe to accept Ryanair does anything wrong, ever. “We court publicity and are always going to get some reaction to that, but based on some of the headlines you’d swear you worked for the Taliban,” he says. He agrees that Ryanair is tough, but says it has to be to survive. “Most companies that are soft and spend their time explaining can’t deliver. This idea that people don’t like us is not borne out by the facts.”
Wilson says staff are treated well and paid fairly. “Our wages have to be high enough to attract people. There are no salary scales that you see in legacy airlines, so we don’t automatically pay someone who has been here for 25 years more than someone who has been here for two years – and we make no apologies for that.”