Ryanair strike hits 55,000 customers across Europe
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
- The contracts are based on Irish law and contain rules that violate German employment laws.
- They have to pay for water on the flight, in addition to lots of other things (e.g. health checks, mandatory simulator hours). These costs can sometimes be deducted, but they argue the airline should pay for it in the first place.
- When they are sick, they have to come to the office/airport and state their symptoms in writing.
- Lots of Pilots are hired as contractors, not as full time employees. That would also violate German employment laws.
[0] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2018-07/streik-flugbegleiter-...
[1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2018-01/pilotenstreik-ryanair...
For 19 days after the first strike one day by Irish pilots Ryanair management agreed to a mere two hours of meetings, and has since stated it plans to re-base a 100 pilots out of Poland: essentially threatening employees that they would have to change country to keep their jobs.
As for actual demands, I've found mentioned that Irish pilots aren't happy about the rules for how they are rebased, apparently the process isn't very transparent for the employees.
What they could have mentioned is that the pilots strongly back the the strike with 96% of them voting for it.
IIRC one of the biggest complaints was that their workers in other countries still have to work under Irish labor laws which includes less holidays and PTO than they would deserve under laws of countries they actually live in.
I'm not sure I understand this sentence - changing the norms of industries is what mass strikes are good for. Strikes are most effective when bad practices are so widespread that job market itself can't fix them anymore.
I believe Ryanair technically employees people out of countries with very low wages and worker protection laws (Ireland, for example), which allows them to skirt some laws that would otherwise apply to them.
They've explained that your hours count ONLY when the plane has closed the door and backed away from the gate. Then you are officially being paid for your time.
This explains the horror stories of "stuck on the runway". It's usually issues with weather/equipment/airport, etc. and it's not in the crew's best interest to just stay at the gate until the issue is resolved. If you're at the gate, the crew is not being paid.
All things being equal, people would usually pick the cheapest flight. But Ryanair are now making it abundantly clear that their flights are not equal to others. When you pick a flight you need confidence that your flight will take off, and that you can get home. It amazes me that Ryanair are willing to lose people's confidence like this, it will take a long time to get it back, if at all.
That touches the only thing that America has and that Europe really lacks: class action lawsuit. I suppose it's good when all employees of a company can go together against the company.
Exactly - I've only been on two Ryanair flights and they were dreadful. It's like they were going out of their way to make it feel shit.
I’ve actually never had a problem with Ryanair at all – you don’t get as nice a service as easyJet, but fares usually are considerably lower. Essentially you get what you pay for – if you want rock bottom priced air-fares, you have to expect poorer service.
(Admittedly, I’ve not got caught up in any of the recent problems)
This man was exceptionally talented in cost-cutting, and raked in many awards for "company of the year" etc. because of this.
I had flown Ryanair for the first time only after I left that company and I could recognise his, um, touch in the way everything was organised.
(Link in French : https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/haute-garo... )
let's not pretend they don't try to rip customers off with hidden or gotcha fees, because they do. Their whole business model is based on bait+switch. You said they did "build trust" but at the same time you are saying " I know their procedures", of course, because if you are not careful you'll pay some bullshit fees. It's just one of the worst plane company in western Europe.
And they are not that cheap since their planes often only land not in main airports but ones in the middle of nowhere so you often have to add the cost of transport to your actual destination which is often not that cheap.
That's the business model of most of EU's cheap air companies. E.g. EasyJet "allows" you one piece of luggage on board, but unless you're EasyJet Plus (i.e. pay extra), good luck actually taking it with you on board with any sort of predictability or regularity.
And Ryan Air takes it to a whole new level. At least easy jet planes don't feel like they are going to break in the middle of the flight.
RyanAir doesn't say that you can bring a bag, they actually write the opposite on the ticket, even if you can bring a bag for free.
If you read the little text in the conditions, it doesn't say that you can bring a bag either, instead it adds further confusion to push you to pay an extra bag charge. IMO, the level of deception involved is abusive to the point where it could be brought to the EU court and justify a fine.
That would be my main issue. I don't mind little space and other inconviniences that much ... but I do not accept a higher risk for flying budget. I assumed, that RyanAir budget everything they can, but not savety. And as far as I can tell, the maintaineance etc. looked professional.
The airport thing might be changing a little bit - they've got no choice with Dublin in Ireland, and they're now operating out of Frankfurt Am Main (as well as or instead of Frankfurt Hahn). Frankfurt AM absolutely isn't middle of nowhere.
They're also one of two options if you want to get to Leeds Bradford airport from Ireland; the other being Aer Lingus Regional, which costs more and has worse baggage allowances, and uses turboprop planes which are noisier. I can tune out the Ryanair "lottery" tickets (which are more a scam than a lottery I think) easily enough.
Oh yeah, one other thing - Ryanair will give you approval to carry a CPAP for a year at a time, in addition to regular hand luggage. Painless process via a CS agent online. Aer Lingus? Every flight requires an email to SpecialAssistance who might deign to get back to you within a week.
You don't need to pay for the bag. The bag is included in the ticket. However, they write the opposite on the ticket and they push very hard to get you to pay an extra charge for the bag.
Paid cabin luggage, non reclining seats, fucking lottery ticket sales... it’s silly. Yet I still do somewhat like em.
Free check in of extra luggage at the gate. If you end up paying for the "luxury" of in-cabin, then your flight becomes the same price if you flew with some other airline that offers cabin luggage.
For short flights you don't need reclining seats. I don't like reclining seats anyway because you are stealing space from the person behind (and also getting stolen from the person in front).
Wear headphones or sleep to ignore ads.
Can't expect half as cheap flights without something to cover for it.
No recline is horrible especially when you are taller. I can’t sit normally, even when I get front or emergency seats.
uber feels like this partially, it's often juvenile hubris seducing markets and then dropping down when reality kicks in.
quite a loss
I've been telling my girlfriend to never buy Ryanair again for as long as she bought Ryanair. There aren't really alternatives in the nearby airports or on the right day/time, so there's that.
I guess they can keep doing whatever they want as long as there is no competition.
Point being, there is little competition between airlines. There is also no reason for ryanair to be this cheap, they should be able to raise price without issues.
Wow. I'm surprised that a plane that has any part of the ventilation system broken is even allowed to take off!
By the way, the flight itself is less than 2 hours. The wait in the plane, grounded, was more than the flight time.
I think how the A/C on an airliner is driven depends the location. There are the engines while in flight, the APU (Auxillary Power Unit, a small jet engine that starts the main engines, tops the batteries, and other tasks) while idling on the ground, off the batteries, or off a service cart on the ground. Running the engines burns fuel, the APU burns fuel, and having the service cart incurs ground fees. So it's likely that RyanAir didn't want to spend to keep the A/C going.
No, it's not that they are cheap. The pilot warned on the speakers that the air conditioning has broken down.
I recall when we boarded, the plane was much warmer than any plane I've ever been. I don't think it could get that warm in the time it take to disembark and reembark, so it probably broke during the last trip.
If I compare with the bus I take to the airport: RYR have a higher chance of showing up on time. A higher chance of a functional toilet, and I'm guaranteed a seat.
The bus is give-or-take 30 minutes, frequently stuck in rush hour traffic, and booking a seat doesn't guarantee I'll get on the bus, it just guarantees I'll have priority over anyone at the same busstop who didn't book.
The kicker? My last three flights (each) cost me less than that bus.
This is RYR in a nutshell. They'll lower their price if you'll lower your expectations. And in doing so, they've essentially brought air travel to the working class. Comparing them to a 'real' airline is like asking why hostels still exist when proper hotels offer a much better experience.
It's actually a really interesting piece of psychology. Ryanair's service is so much worse in so many ways that I'm sure it's not better value for money. But even if you have to wake up at 4am to make it to an airport in the middle of nowhere to take a Ryanair flight to an airport 50 miles away from where you are actually going, it's still really tempting to pick the cheapest flight.
Or worse, if anyone up there even cares to save the business. It could well be in the final stages of executive loot and plunder and we're just looking at the final stages where nobody even bothers to pretend they're interested in saving the business.
If they have to increase their spending on workers as a result of this action, it is more likely to be an existential threat to the company rather than any regulatory or customer reaction.
Funny how these people only scream about redistribution when it's from the rich to the poor, and not the other way around.
I'm not crazy about them but i like having them around.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airlines_with_more_tha...
This is the first time I experience a cancelled flight. It is absolutely disastrous. I could not make it to my holiday since they provided 0 communication and the next flight was in 5 days...
This will surely affect there bottom line. Right now I'm considering buying a car and driving 20 hours when I want to get home instead of taking a plane.
People failing to claim compensation makes issues like this cheaper for airlines, and therefore more frequent.
I don't mind the trains but they are usually a lot slower and more expensive.
They essentially underpay employees by A LOT compared with the major airlines. It's how they keep their prices low. Pay little, charge for everything, but discount the price of the regular ticket by a lot.
And WHY would you take that job? Because it gets your foot into the door in the industry.
As a pilot, for you to become a captain (and earn more money), you have to complete certain thousands of hours of flight. And so you want to do that as quickly as possible. Regional airlines are a much easier to be hired into and you can get your routes on a very regular basis to make up all of your hours. Then, when you've completed your hours, you then apply to work for a larger airline with better pay and benefits.