sbrower

What a ridiculous idea. Next thing you know he will be suggesting that they get rid of the flight engineer. Everyone knows you can't fly a plane without 3 people in the cockpit!!!

hgdf

Every commercial IFR flight always requires two pilots. Also, most multi-engine jets (like the 737) are are designed and certified to be flown by two pilots.

Train the stewardess to land the plane? Seriously, O'Leary always says crazy sh*t like this to shock people and get publicity. It doesn't matter whether he's proposing to charge for using the toilet or suggesting that passengers fly standing up, cheek by jowl up like a bunch of cattle.

Obviously he knows this is a non-starter.

alanh

The semi-serious version is to replace one of the flight attendants with the pilot not flying. That person would assume FA duties during the flight, unless needed in the cockpit.

The problem, of course, is that in an emergency the FAs are stationed at the doors and are in charge of marshaling an evacuation. But if there's an emergency, the second pilot is going to be needed in the cockpit and won't be able to do this.

O'Leary just likes the publicity. He knows perfectly well what's wrong with this.

GateHold

Below is my own response to O'Leary's silliness....


When Michael O'Leary talks, people listen. O'Leary, if you're unfamiliar, is the head honcho of Ryanair, Europe's wildly successful, low-cost version of Southwest. People listen because what he's got to say is liable to be some eyebrow-raising combo of inflammatory, insulting, and nonsensical. It can be difficult to determine when he's being serious, which is likely part of his schtick, but he's nothing if not provocative.

O'Leary is a sort of anti-Richard Branson. Where Sir Richard uses his flamboyance to elevate and even re-romanticize the idea of flying, O'Leary strives to grind away every last vestige of its dignity. His gimmicky proposals have included on-board pay toilets and stand-up cabins. He strives to make Ryanair * so * low cost as to do away with airfares entirely, he has said, relying only on ancillary revenue from things like luggage fees and, well, pay toilets.

The ability to charge 15 euros -- or no euros -- for a flight to Mallorca requires that that expenses be held as low as possible. To this end O'Leary views his employees as important and expendable as a paper boarding pass. Indeed, O'Leary's latest publicity stunt is a call to remove first officers (copilots) from the cockpits of RyanAir's fleet of Boeing 737s. One pilot, rather than the required two, he says, is enough to get the job done safely, particularly on shorter flights.

"Really, you only need one pilot," O'Leary boats during a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. "Let's take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it."

The bloody computer. There are so many things wrong with this that I hardly know where to begin.

Regardless of whether or not his harebrained idea will ever fly (it won't), O'Leary is nevertheless perpetuating the irritating myth that jetliners are so automated that they essentially "fly themselves," with the crew on hand mainly as a backup. This ridiculous notion, forever repeated by the press, is something I've addressed many times in this column. It never goes away, and now O'Leary has given it yet another media run and a another phony glimmer of plausibility.

I'll spare you another agonized dissertation, but here's a brief review:

The realities of cockpit automation are widely misunderstood and consistently exaggerated. This is in part thanks to the aerospace academics and researchers the media tends to call on. While their work might be useful and important, they often have limited knowledge of the * operational * aspects of commercial flying. Blame also falls on those airline pilots who, in their attempts to sound self-effacing or when trying to offer easy-to-understand explanations, come out with hokey summations like, "Aw, dang, this plane practically flies itself." They undermine their profession * and * give people the completely wrong idea.

Airplanes do not take off by themselves; they do not land by themselves; they do not * fly * by themselves. Yes there is such a thing as an automatic landing -- an "autoland" in pilot parlance -- whereby the plane performs a hands-off touchdown. This capability is there if you need it, for those extreme low-visibility approaches, but practice it is very rare, comprising well under one percent of all landings. Rare because an automatic landing is, in most aspects, * more * complicated and work intensive than a manual one.

Meanwhile the workload in even the most "automatic" cockpit can be surprisingly high. I fly mainly longer-haul international routes, and we carry along an auxiliary first officer. You'd be amazed how often * all three * of us are busy. As a rule, though, the busiest cockpits tend to be those on short flights. Ironically these are the very flights on which O'Leary seems to think pilots are most expendable. He's really showing his ignorance here -- if in fact he means what he's saying.

I'm trying to picture some poor lone pilot in a Ryanair 737 shooting an ILS approach to minimums, with a go-around and diversion to an alternate airport, having to deal with the weather, ATC and company communications, fuel planning, reprogramming the FMS and setting up the next approach, and so on. Not to mention * flying * the damn plane. Sure there's an autopilot, and it requires a steady stream of inputs in order to manage speed, altitude, and course.

That's more or less routine. Now imagine something goes wrong. That's not a problem, though, in Michael O'Leary's view. And I quote:

"if the pilot has an emergency, he rings the bell, he calls her in."

By "her" he means a flight attendant. One extra employee on every Ryanair flight, you see, would be trained to land a plane.

I am not making this up.

To land a plane. As if "landing" is some insignificant, easily compartmentalized aspect of flying to mastered over the course of a few hours of instruction. And with that I am forced to close my eyes, breathe easy, and picture a "happy place" -- a place free of such abject idiocy and the ill-informed people who might actually pay attention to it.

I also picture a hapless flight attendant pressed into sudden duty, attempting to negotiate an instrument approach in a 737. Heck, for the touchdown, let's throw in a 20-knot crosswind just to make it interesting. This is so beyond the realm of possibility that it pains me even to address it, and I shudder to think that thousands, maybe even millions of people have read O'Leary's comments and granted them a shred of credibility.

Michael O'Leary has at last succeeded in presenting us with the most preposterous thing ever uttered by the head of an airline. Of course, no sane government body or aviation authority would consider his scheme for half a second, and I'd like to think that not even O'Leary could be brazen enough, or stupid enough, to take it seriously. But you never know. Certainly he * sounds * like he means it. Another provocative firecracker designed to cause a commotion and keep his company's name in the news? A cheap way of insulting his workers and reminding them who the boss is? Was he talking tongue-in-cheek?

Whichever. It'd be best if he simply kept his mouth shut.




That's from my most recent ASK THE PILOT post on Salon.com. You can view it here...

http://www.salon.com/news/air_travel...oleary_ryanair

1st Cav Vet

Really tragic leader for airline. Let's see...landing is a controlled crash...so remove a FA from escape duty and put in cockpit in place of experienced pilot??? What????

Keyser

you mean he hasn't already????

BristolTraveller

I had the "pleasure" of speaking at conference also addressed by a senior member of Ryanair executive team. He quite freely admitted that they'll say *anything* to get publicity of any kind, good or bad, and that traffic to their website and ticket sales rise every time they do.

He then proceeded to make the most appalling and groundless allegations against a body quite unable to defend itself, which duly made it to the front page of the relevant newspapers the following day.

If you don't agree with this kind of behaviour, capitalism provides a mechanism for you to show it. Don't book Ryanair, and marshal your persuasive powers to help other people from giving their money to Ryanair as well.

Personally, I will only fly Ryanair on BRS-DUB (a 42 minute trip), and only where I pay GBP11 or less (in total, including credit card and all other fees), against the mandatory GBP11 UK departure tax that FR must pay. In other words, I only fly them when I know I'm creating a definite loss for them.

Keyser

good call....^^

pinniped

I don't see what the problem is... Remember that 747 full of snakes a couple years ago? A kid landed it with basic Xbox skills!!

Xyzzy

I wuldn't be surprised to see Ryanair remove the "Co-" from the title of this thread and try to remove pilots entirely.

Keyser

hilarious....

Great White North

And this is why I will never fly Ryan Air unless they have the last flight off a volcanic island with a volcano ready to erupt. I have no desire to take my life in my hands by flying an airline run by someone who is so willing to compromise on safety. He may never accomplish this goal, but I am left wondering what safety features he has already compromised on his airline.

rwoman

Anyone else think that FR uses various "silly" ideas for PR in the media...if nothing else, we end up talking/posting about them...of course, I still avoid flying with them.

Xyzzy

Of course they d. This thread is well over two years old, by the way.

zigzagg900

Michael O'leary doesn't want to get rid of co-pilots. He wants publicity, and by discussing this topic as if he were serious, we're giving him exactly what he wants.

On a side note there's a book "Ruinair" by Paul Kilduff. It's one man's adventure on a low-cost Irish airline surprisingly similar to the one being discussed. Good read.