Pros
- made some great friends on training. - Occasionally you will have a great crew onboard, which really helps the long days pass quicker - it’s ok for people getting started in the industry as an experience starter - 5 on 3 off roster is good, although sometimes it’s 6 2 if they feel like being difficult.
Cons
- literally everything else other than that listed in the pros - the pay is so bad, borderline illegal, was quoted 24-28k when I applied for the job. Am earning about 21k annually. I worked it out as about 13 pounds an hour when you calculate the 12 hour standby shifts, the time you get in the airport for a flight etc. - management is awful, corrupt, inconsistent and pretty much incompetent. The different management teams do not communicate with each-other, so getting sometimes simple things resolved can involve emailing and calling multiple different departments (and most of the time they ignore you). - no food provided, only water (and your only allowed 4 bottles per shift!!). It’s very bad that Ryanair do not provide crew a meal during days that can be over 12 hours, you must pay the extortionate cost yourself. - the expectations of crew is ridiculous, considering the pay we are on. I know people who have even been sacked for ridiculous things that Ryanair see as a sackable offence. - the actual flying hours are minimal, most time is spend on standby, on the ground. This is because Ryanair is very over crewed at the moment, especially London Stansted base. Being on standby means you don’t earn as much money, and people who have bills and mortgages have had no option but to get a second job or leave entirely. - colleagues; most of the time, not all, are rude and incompetent. I’ve flown with many crews who cannot even speak much english! - the sales system, crew earn a sales bonus depending on the amount of sales they made, 10% of the total. This is down to the specific crew member’s sales, not the entire crew operating. This creates a toxic practice which means some crew will essentially steal a sale from another crew in order to earn more. Most of the times the sales bonus’ are incorrect on payslips anyway. - cabin managers are usually very young, inexperienced and rude. They act really entitled and think they are better than the rest of the crew. Also, every crew manager will do things differently, so as junior crew you have to adapt to the specific manager you are flying with that day. - the rostering team don’t know how to form a roster, once they called me in from standby to operate and ended up sitting at the airport from 10pm to 4am and then they cancelled the flight. Alongside rostering me illegal hours; which only got removed when I told them. Overall the company is awful, I would not recommend to anyone, even those who want to get their foot in the door into the aviation sector as it is just not worth the pain you will go through.