Ryanair want to remove the Co-Pilot

[andorra-airport]

And here we go again with free publicity of Ryanair:

Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary,

Talking to Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek he said:

“Really, you only need one pilot,” he continues. “Let’s take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it.” What happens if the pilot has a heart attack? One member of the cabin crew on all Ryanair flights would be trained to land a plane. “If the pilot has an emergency, he rings the bell, he calls her in,” O’Leary says. “She could take over.”

“If you don’t approach air travel with a radical point of view, then you get in the same bloody mindset as all the other morons in this industry: This is the way it has always been, and this is the way it has to be,” says O’Leary. “So nothing changes."

[cnc]

lol why not let the F/O help the F/A's during flight then?
suddenly every FR pilot would want to be captain

[sdbelgium]

suddenly every FR pilot would want to be captain

They already do?

[Thomas_C]

& when there are no female FA's? Why doesn't Michael O'Leary replace the FA's with sale machines?

[galaxy]

“If the pilot has an emergency, he rings the bell, he calls her in,” O’Leary says. “She could take over.”

[cathay belgium]

Yeah Yeah, the adv. of the month !
Also the reply of FR on the formation of the government was in the news.
My tought : MoL was creational mood but who cares...

CX-B

Next month : more news of the stand up/hands up cabins ..

What's the hell : hahaha, just booked a cheap trip to BGY ( nice pizza and coffee day-trip ) !

[andorra-airport]

What's the hell : hahaha, just booked a cheap trip to BGY ( nice pizza and coffee day-trip ) !

I guess you have a pilot license?

[regi]

First of all, it is clear that MOL has no medical background and doesn't know what happens with people who have a heart attack or a stroke: the light goes out in a blink( sometimes). So, no more time to call for assistance.

I understand that managers of companies look to increase the profit. When Ryanair would be allowed to make this saving, we will see other companies do the same. And it is back to START.

I have another suggestion: force all personnel to undergo ( unpaid ) fitness programs and eat the low calory food provided by the airline. Personnel will loose weight and that saves fuel.
On the other hand, if we see how the personnel of Ryanair has to rush , I doubt that there are still many kilograms to work off at the gym.

[Poeli]

Like he means it, nothing more then a publicity stunt... MOL isn't THAT stupid

[earthman]

Why not just let one of the passengers fly the plane then. Give them a free sandwich as an incentive.

Sorry, the flight has been canceled because due to sheer coincidence none of the passengers has a pilot license. This is of course unforeseen and totally beyond our control, thus you are not entitled to any compensation.

[speedbird1]

Latest RYR info:

As of the 1st November 2010: 3 passengers from every flight will be selected at check-in to push back the aircraft from it's stand, this is to further reduce ground handling costs and pass on low fares to passengers... those passengers wishing to exclude themselves from 'Self Push Back Assistance' selection can do so at the cost of 8 euros per sector.

Ah the RYR PR machine rolls on and the journalists can't resist! Go MOL :thumbup:

Ems

[cnc]

Latest RYR info:

As of the 1st November 2010: 3 passengers from every flight will be selected at check-in to push back the aircraft from it's stand, this is to further reduce ground handling costs and pass on low fares to passengers... those passengers wishing to exclude themselves from 'Self Push Back Assistance' selection can do so at the cost of 8 euros per sector.

Ah the RYR PR machine rolls on and the journalists can't resist! Go MOL :thumbup:

Ems

actually at most airports FR only uses power-in/power-out parking spots

[earthman]

In that case, passengers can pay 12 euro to excuse themselves from duty on the aircraft ground power treadmill.

[Stij]

Still, the days MOL announces "serious" cost cutting / extra income measures are long over. After a period of just "impossible" ideas like the toilet joke, or the standing pax joke, he now has to go as deep as reducing safety by suggesting to eliminate plan B.

I guess the last drop has been squeezed out of the lemon: FR is at it's bottom from a cost perspective.

I wonder of he can sustain the growth curve...

Cheers,

Stij

[regi]

Still, the days MOL announces "serious" cost cutting / extra income measures are long over. After a period of just "impossible" ideas like the toilet joke, or the standing pax joke, he now has to go as deep as reducing safety by suggesting to eliminate plan B.

I guess the last drop has been squeezed out of the lemon: FR is at it's bottom from a cost perspective.

I wonder of he can sustain the growth curve...

Cheers,

Stij

exactly the same idea I had.
But there is room for expansion : medium long haul. Just as Airasia has done . But that would probably force Ryanair to use different aircraft.
Another major black spot is Germany with few destinations. Probably too much competition already by other airlines and the rail services. East bound there is still room for expansion. Belarus, Ukrain and Russia. Puchasing power is one thing. But in those cases Ryanair would also be able to use the extremely low wages of those countries. Also the Balkan ( Serbia, Montenegro ) , Turkey and Greece ( Crete ? ) still have room.
I am quite confident that the planners of MoL are reading nothing new here.

[Stij]

FR's model only works within the EU because otherwise the bilateral agreements have to respected and I seriously doubt Belarus, Ekrain and Russia will let MoL in that easy! The only exception is Morocco, probably because the bilateral agreement allows this.

Cheers,

Stij

[regi]

FR's model only works within the EU because otherwise the bilateral agreements have to respected and I seriously doubt Belarus, Ekrain and Russia will let MoL in that easy! The only exception is Morocco, probably because the bilateral agreement allows this.

Cheers,

Stij

I can imagine his frustration that he cannot abuse legislation to his benefit in those countries.

[tsv]

Let the passengers choose - 60 euros for a flight with one Pilot or 70 Euros for just one. FO's will be obsolete in no time!

Seriously I think the idea may be plausible to a degree- at least one day. When I was a Kid Freight Trains in Australia always had 3 Staff, 2 Drivers and a Guard who rode in a Special Wagon at the end of the train. Then it was decided to abolish the Guards Van (I think the Guard may have still ridden in one of the Engines for a while). The Unions screamed Blue Murder, safety was being compromised etc etc. But the trains managed to get from A to B quite happily without the Guard Van and then without the Guards. Next they removed the Observer (second Driver). The Unions and others screamed again but nothing bad happened, at least in the first 20 years to date.

And every day thousands of small aircraft take off from various airports around the world with just one Pilot. How many of these crash? And of those that crash how many would have crashed anyway even if there were 2 Pilots onboard? And even if a Plane occasionally goes down, how big a deal really is this when we are plenty vulnerable on the ground anyway (to car & work place accidents, diseases, crime, wars etc etc). How much money can we justify improving/maintaining air safety standards when statistically hardly any of us die in plane crashes? I don't know the answers to any of the above but personally the idea of flying in a plane which has just one Pilot doesn't disturb me much. I've been up with my Brother in Piper 140's and 180's a few times and he seems to be able to handle the workload just fine. Larger Aircraft are obviously more complex but Technology is continuing to develop rapidly.

So I think it's inevitable that the size of Aircraft piloted by single Pilots will increase. At the moment it seems that most planes with more than 10 or 12 Seats have 2 Pilots. I wouldn't be surprised to see Turbo Props with up to 50 Seats flown by Single Pilots in the next say 10 years.

[cnc]

if you see how much preparation and paper work pilots have you can only conclude that even on 1h flights 1 pilot is impossible even if its only to keep the rotation times.

[Stij]

Well sure, in 99.9999% of the cases 1 pilot will do the trick perfectly! However, I'm not willing to take the 0.0001% extra risk. Not because of the heart attacks or a pilot not being able to land the plane, but because of cross-checking and second opinions.

A lot of people have died because of the FO not being able to challenge his Captain. The PanAm/KLMTenerife disaster, a lot of Korean and China Airlines crashes have attributed to this.

Now actually, in MoL proposal there wouldn't be anybody anymore to challenge the Captain because the seat's empty...

Cheers,

Stij