Monday, August 12, 2013

Safe in their hands?

Following on from our earlier posts on Ryanair, the Scotsman reports three-quarters of Ryanair pilots are employed through agencies and nearly all of these are on zero-hour contracts, which offer no guaranteed work.

The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association trade union said these contracts had some of the worst conditions in the industry.

An internal survey of 1,000 pilots and first officers at one of Europe’s biggest airlines found two-thirds did not feel comfortable about raising safety issues and nine out of ten said the company did not have an “open and transparent safety culture”.

An anonymous pilot said: “It is really difficult to talk to them and the tone used is really unusual for an airline. It’s usually threats and bullying.”

Ryanair previously warned in a memo that any pilot signing what it described as a “so-called safety petition” could face the sack for gross misconduct.


1 comment:

ajohnstone said...

Ryanair has sacked one of its longest-serving pilots for revealing concerns about safety on the airline.

John Goss was dismissed with “immediate effect” and the airline issued legal proceedings against him after he appeared in a documentary that raised questions about Ryanair’s safety policy. The airline said that Captain Goss, who was with Ryanair for 27 years, had been dismissed for “gross misconduct”.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/ryanair-safety-row-whistleblower-pilot-sacked-1-3049147