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Comment by madaxe_again | Hacker News Reader

Not always. I’ve spent 36 hours stuck at a gate with no plane in sight with them, before they finally cancelled the flight - mechanical issues with the aircraft, apparently - and they always find a way to worm out of the EC compensation directive, mostly by just flatly refusing to engage. Still waiting for the refund, nearly a year on - they give themselves 250 working days to issue refunds.

They also have poorly trained pilots, who either aren’t qualified for ILS or aren’t confident in poor conditions - on numerous occasions I’ve been on flights which they’ve diverted (Bristol becomes Birmingham, Bergerac becomes Toulouse, Porto becomes Madrid) because of weather, while other airlines land and take off without issue.

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> They also have poorly trained pilots, who either aren’t qualified for ILS or aren’t confident in poor conditions - on numerous occasions I’ve been on flights which they’ve diverted (Bristol becomes Birmingham, Bergerac becomes Toulouse, Porto becomes Madrid) because of weather, while other airlines land and take off without issue.

This is straight-up defamatory. Ryanair have similar entry requirements to the majors, much better training and equipment, and the best safety record of any airline in the world. No one gets an EASA Part FCL without ILS, and every Ryanair pilot will be absolutely confident in ILS approaches - most will have done far more than other airline pilots.

I have no reason to doubt that their pilots are trained as well as other pilots. However, I also have no reason to believe they are trained any better.

Do you have any reference to the claim of "much better training" and "far more [ILS approaches] than other airline pilots"?

Ryanair is simply a young airline that only recently grew in size. Their safety record is practically blank and hardly qualifies them as the best in the business.

Hawaii Airlines for example has not had a single fatal crash since it’s founding in 1929.

Ryanair is 34 years old and flew more PAX in the last two years than Hawaiian has in its entire history, with significantly fewer accidents and incidents, even if you only consider those that occurred while both airlines were flying. It's hard to find historical PAX numbers for Hawaiian, but it seems that Ryanair overtook them at some point in 2000.

I don't see any basis for your claim that their safety record is "practically blank". They are widely considered the world's safest airline - a spot they shared with Southwest until ‎SWA1380.

If you compare crashes per flight by year, the entire industry has become safer over time. The expected number of crashes given their operating history assuming an average airline would likely be zero. In fact over 20 major airlines currently having a clean record. So, on it’s own that’s really not enough information to say anything.

If we are trying to find ‘the best’ airline in the industry you need to either consider only current practices/equipment etc, or look for airlines with zero crashes despite higher expected lifetime risks.

The lady doth protest far too much.

So why can’t they land or take off in fog or rain, when other airlines can? I’m guessing you work for them, so I’d love an explanation.

Cheap insurance policies that don’t cover it?

I’ve also experienced more atrocious landings with Ryanair than any other airline - flaring late, early, or not at all - they must spend a fortune repairing undercarriage.

I don’t buy it. Bargain basement airline, bargain basement pilots.

I mean, if they were any good, they’d fly for one of the majors, rather than a notoriously mean employer, no?

> they always find a way to worm out of the EC compensation directive

That's not been my experience. I had a cancelled return flight, received an SMS about 6 hours before the scheduled departure. I was able to exchange online my flight for another one going to Budapest (I just wanted to be anywhere in the EU at least) where I stayed for the night and took another plane home.

Once home, I submitted all this to their customer service and I was totally reimbursed, even though the cancellation was due to a strike in Brussels and not their fault. I was honestly surprised not to have to fight.

>They also have poorly trained pilots, who either aren’t qualified for ILS or aren’t confident in poor conditions - on numerous occasions I’ve been on flights which they’ve diverted (Bristol becomes Birmingham, Bergerac becomes Toulouse, Porto becomes Madrid) because of weather, while other airlines land and take off without issue.

Completely wrong they have the same requirements as any other airline. It's the law to have a APL and a type rating + check rides every 6 months -- just like any European airline.

I dont believe it is pilot training, but rather Ryanair doesnt always install proper lighting for heavy fog nor do the smaller european airports on the runways themselves. The lack of more advanced lighting on the planes is probably fine for major european airports that have ground lighting rated to a category of visibility, but the smaller airports have a lesser lighting and fewer backups so combined with Ryanair planes the pilots don’t/can’t risk landing. I had this experience in Poland, where a ryanair flight was expected to land in Bydgoszcz but landed in Gdansk instead (without informing anyone in English of what or where we were)

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