Co-pilots are unnecessary

[gilby08]

Co-pilots are unnecessary - Ryanair's Michael O'Leary says | News.com.au


They Ryan Air boss is back and casuing more of a stir in the aviation industry.

The bloke just keeps getting funnier and funnier

A CONTROVERSIAL airline chief has been accused of endangering passengers' safety after calling for co-pilots to be replaced with flight attendants.

Michael O’Leary, head of budget airline Ryanair, suggested that money could be saved by abolishing co-pilots.
Mr O’Leary said that a flight attendant could be trained to land the plane if the pilot ran into problems.
"Really, you only need one pilot. Let's take out the second pilot. Let the bl**dy computer fly it," Mr O’Leary told Bloomberg Business Week.

 

[straitman]

Co-pilots are unnecessary - Ryanair's Michael O'Leary says | News.com.au


They Ryan Air boss is back and casuing more of a stir in the aviation industry.

The bloke just keeps getting funnier and funnier

I don't know whether this guy is a joke, a joker or an idiot :!:

He has obviously not sat in the front left (or right) seat of an aircraft when things get busy.

 

[Ikara]

Any publicity....................etc.

JB

 

[gilby08]

Forward loads mustn't be reaching their targets!

 

[markis10]

The fool needs to read some air safety investigations where the copilot made a big difference to the outcome as an experienced member of the crew, maybe starting with this one:

Ryanair captain flew unstable approach days after son's death

Investigators believe a newly bereaved Ryanair captain's psychological state, combined with his co-pilot's inexperience, led to an unplanned and highly unstable approach to Rome during poor weather conditions.

 

[harvyk]

I wasn't going to re-post this one, as it's exactly what the guy want's.

He has no idea what he is talking about, but he does know that sprouting out some BS will get the world wide media to publish stories about Ryanair, and thus get people talking about them again (and there will be one or two people who will book with Ryanair as a result). Obviously sales where down a little last month.

He is again receiving world wide advertising for free.

 

[docjames]

please stop giving him free publicity :-|

 

[Aussie_flyer]

And anyone who reacts to try and prove Mr O'Leary wrong is merely falling for the bait!

Another Ryanair publicity scam

 

[samh004]

And anyone who reacts to try and prove Mr O'Leary wrong is merely falling for the bait!

Another Ryanair publicity scam

Scam or not, wouldn’t make me fly them, so the publicity is useless

But I would have thought no matter what he wanted to do, it would ultimately come down to the body that overseas all the rules and regs where his planes fly, and they’d obviously say to him if he didn’t have a copilot, he wouldn’t be entering their airspace.

Maybe what he meant so say was he wanted the copilot to act as the CSM, greeting pax and helping out if needed in the cabin, but still required in the coughpit in anything but perfect weather

Despite there still obviously being problems with that idea. Less outlandish the other way around though.

 

[oz_mark]

As a prime minister once said - they're just glorified bus drivers :mrgreen:

 

[kamchatsky]

As a prime minister once said - they're just glorified bus drivers :mrgreen:

With your life fully dependent on them!

 

[Postcode]

O’Leary is just looking for an extra seat he can sell.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

With your life fully dependent on them!

Well, to be fair, your life is fully dependent on a bus driver as well if you are in a bus!

 

[dajop]

Well, to be fair, your life is fully dependent on a bus driver as well if you are in a bus!

And in the last 30 years or so I'm sure there's been more fatalities within Australia from scheduled intercity buses than scheduled commercial flights (with probably much more pax on the latter).

 

[Groundfeeder]

And in the last 30 years or so I'm sure there's been more fatalities within Australia from scheduled intercity buses than scheduled commercial flights (with probably much more pax on the latter).

I've had precisely one more prang as a bus passenger than as an airline passenger

 

[BAM1748]

And in the last 30 years or so I'm sure there's been more fatalities within Australia from scheduled intercity buses than scheduled commercial flights (with probably much more pax on the latter).

Not sure how you worked out flights would have more pax than buses, but;

NSW - State Transit Buses alone had 207.8M passengers trips, 08/09 year.
Flights through all captial cities carried 105M passenger trips.

So if we added up all the bus passengers in captial cities I think airlines have a way to go before they have "much more pax". In fact I doubt they will ever reach it let alone more.

 

[dajop]

Not sure how you worked out flights would have more pax than buses, but;

NSW - State Transit Buses alone had 207.8M passengers trips, 08/09 year.
Flights through all captial cities carried 105M passenger trips.

So if we added up all the bus passengers in captial cities I think airlines have a way to go before they have "much more pax". In fact I doubt they will ever reach it let alone more.

If you read my post it says scheduled intercity bus services - which is a fair comparison as that's what what aircraft do, they fly between cities (or towns) not between suburbs. Do the State Transit Bus figures you refer to include Sydney Bus services or just countrylink services?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

As a prime minister once said - they're just glorified bus drivers :mrgreen:

Well didn't that stir up a hornet's next back in '89!

Did anyone see the Enough Rope episode when Andrew Denton interviewed the late Don Chipp?

Andrew asked Don what happened to Bob Hawke to which he replied something along the lines of basically "Bob's trouble was that he fell in love with himself"?

 

[thewinchester]

Back to topic, thanks to this article on the Worldmate travelog - there's no way, no how this is going to happen.

The Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA), a multi-national organization that oversees the common safety and regulatory standards for more than 40 nations in Europe, says that Ryanair cannot operate in this manner as per JAR-OPS Subpart N, 1.940(A)(1) & 1.940(A)(2) (Page 1-N-1 of the JAA Joint Aviation Requirements JAR-OPS 1, Commercial Air Transportation Aeroplanes)

JAR-OPS 1.940 Composition of Flight Crew

(a) An operator shall ensure that:

(1) The composition of the flight and the number of the flight crewmembers at designated crew stations are both compliance with, and no less than the minimum specified in, the Aeroplane Flight Manual (AFM)

(2) The flight crew includes additional flight crew members when required by the type of operation, and is not reduced below the number specified in the Operations Manual.

If one should read the Aeroplane Flight Manual (AFM) as written by Boeing for the Boeing 737-800, as Ryanair’s fleet is comprised entirely of 250 737-8AS aircraft, it states that this aircraft requires a crew of two pilots in the coughpit to fly the aircraft.

He can do it - if he can get 40 European countries to all agree to changing their regulations, or get Boeing to re-write the AFM for the 737-800. Neither of these is likely to happen due to the significant amount of political wrangling that would be involved across so many jurisdictions.

In short, O'leary is bonkers - and we need to stop giving him oxygen so his stupid ideas can die a quick death.

 

[oz_mark]

...or get Boeing to change the manual :shock: