In the crew room

David Learmount :

It’s been six years since I’ve spent a couple of days with Ryanair. The airline has changed. Not out of all recognition, but it’s different.

Back then – in 2007 – I was researching a feature about the stresses modern pilots face, especially those in the low cost carriers.
Standards required were high. It wasn’t enough just to have a current pilot licence and type rating; candidates had to demonstrate they had plenty to spare. A pilot has still to be sharp at the end of a hard day, and Ryanair pilots handle multiple sectors, 25min turnarounds and high hours. But they work a normal schedule of five days on, four days off, which is pretty good.

Now Ryanair has a fleet more than three times the size it was then, and six times as many bases.

Well, they’ve got seriously big. When you are little you are nimble, and you can duck and dive. When you are big you have more inertia,  and it’s more important to get things right. Ryanair is so big now that, while O’Leary swears the airline has not become part of the establishment, one could argue that it has actually become the new European establishment, along with EasyJet.
All the pilots I met, from Ray down to junior first officers, had a quiet confidence, even a pride, about them I had not sensed last time.
Ryanair demands a lot of its pilots. They work hard and are expected to show a professional discipline at all times. Ray makes clear what the SOPs are, including fuel (much in the news last year). I’ve been through the fuel guidelines with a finetooth comb and there’s nothing wrong with them. Captains are expected to take standard reserves, allowances for winds and weather, plus they are allowed an additional 300kg discretion they don’t have to justify. If they want to take even more they can, but they have to justify, afterwards, why it was needed. That’s plain good discipline.

- See more at: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/learmount/2013/08/a-glimpse-of-ryanair-today/#sthash.w6SjFAb4.dpuf