" The stewardess can land it " says the boss of Ryanair

[Frederick]

Now he is suggesting get rid of the co pilot to save costs .  Another publicity stunt .

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/ryanair-boss-let-air-stewardesses-land-planes-14933819.html

[woolybanana]

Judging by the last Ironair landing I saw, the stewardess did land it!

[AnOther]

Reputedly modern aircraft are perfectly capable of landing themselves but the public would never accept being a pilotless.

As an aside I recall getting onto an Easyjet flight in Luton very shortly after 9/11 and just as we started to push back the tannoy burst into life with 'good morning ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mohammed something or other and I'm your pilot for this flight to Edinburgh', there was instant silence and you literally could have heard the proverbial a pin drop [blink]

[bubbles]

As another aside, I remember taking a ferry to cross the channel one dark and stormy December day. 'Twas a Townsend Thoresen ship and all the seats had the logo with TT on them.

My young daughter, aged about 7 at the time, piped up in a voice which carried throughout the deck: "Is this the Titanic then, mum?"

It was pretty quiet then too.

[Gardengirl]

A very strange idea! No thanks! 

We travel regularly on Ryanair flights from Luton to Nimes. Never had a problem with them, but I do find it very hard to understand many of the young cabin crew from eastern Europe, who perform their duties well, but I've not heard one who can speak clear English, which could matter a lot if problems arose on the aircraft.

Another problem seems to be that none of these particular women on flights I've been on seem to speak French at all. If none of them speaks French, a member of ground crew stays on the plane until take off. Many French people travel on these planes, and a lot don't speak any English, so there's nobody on board who can converse with them to explain anything. Irish cabin crew often have a French speaker amongst them. I've often helped out, and do wonder about communication in an emergency!

[AnOther]

Similarly though KLM, BA, Easyjet etc, flying out of Toulouse, do not necessarily have French speaking cabin staff on board. It may happen that there is a French speaking crew member but I doubt it is a legal requirement to have one. KLM, who I mostly fly with, only ever give the safety brief in English and Dutch and in all the time I've been flying with them I don't think I can recall ever hearing French being spoken on the PA system.

In RA's case remember your aircraft is not only plying between Luton and Nimes. From Luton that same plane and crew (if not pilots) could go on just about anywhere so following your argument about emergency communications they would need a pool of linguists on hand at every destination ready to leap on board depending on where the aircraft were next bound. Can you imagine the chaos if a your aircraft from Nimes were next going to let's say Greece and was fully loaded and ready to go but there was no Greek speaking cabin attendent available ?

 

[Hoddy]

I'm not sure if O'Leary is serious or not. I think he is beginning to sound increasingly desperate though.

Hoddy

[woolybanana]

Or just taking the *iss

[Baz]

It's the O'Leary publicity machine again and it works as it catches every ones attention.

Baz

[Pickles]

[quote user="Hoddy"]I'm not sure if O'Leary is serious or not. I think he is beginning to sound increasingly desperate though.

Hoddy[/quote]

It's a publicity stunt, along with the idea of taking out two of the toilets, charging for the third (I nearly wrote turd) and fitting more seats. The B737-800 is somewhat over the size limit for single pilot operations (12.5 tonnes?) and apparently if one wished to put in more than 189 seats, another escape per side would be required to meet evacuation certification requirements.

MO'L thinks that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Regards

Pickles

[Frederick]

[quote user="Baz"]

It's the O'Leary publicity machine again and it works as it catches every ones attention.

Baz

[/quote]

  He might just get the attention of a few people who turn up in white coats one day !

[betty]

[quote user="Pickles"][quote user="Hoddy"]I'm not sure if O'Leary is serious or not. I think he is beginning to sound increasingly desperate though. Hoddy[/quote]

It's a publicity stunt, along with the idea of taking out two of the toilets, charging for the third (I nearly wrote turd) and fitting more seats. The B737-800 is somewhat over the size limit for single pilot operations (12.5 tonnes?) and apparently if one wished to put in more than 189 seats, another escape per side would be required to meet evacuation certification requirements.

[/quote]

Ryanair First Officers will now know how much their boss values and respects them.

Incidentally, single pilot max take off weight is 5700kgs. So as Pickles says,  overweight for single crew operations for the B737-800

One toilet for about 180 or so passengers, lovely if you have to join a long queue with Delhi belly.

What a cheap and pathetic publicity stunt.

 

[PaulT]

Certainly is cheap - why oh why do newspaper editors give him free publicity instead of paying for an advert.