Three Ryanair "emergency" landings in Valencia on same day

[Passenger]

On 20th September, O'Leary held a press conference in Madrid. He then presented a report from the Irish IAA, stating that all legal terms have been respected. The RTBF now says that it has the full official IAA document, and that it actually proofs that O'Leary lied about that report and that it also says that Ryanair's fuel policy is not that safe as O'Leary pretends.

Full story from Belgian (French) television RTBF.be (in French):
http://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_ ... id=7846737

Report from Het Laatste Nieuws (Belgium's biggest online newspaper) (in Dutch):
http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/942/Economie/a ... ngen.dhtml

- - -

There's a proverb in Dutch about this: "al loopt de leugen nog zo snel, de waarheid achterhaalt haar wel". Translated, it's something like "even if the lie runs hard, the truth will catch her".

[shockcooling]

Dear passenger, this is quatsch, MOL is a manager, not a pilot. He didn't lie, he just doesn't know how to explain it, what really matters, is that the pilots did everything according the books. These articles are pure rubbish, bah!

[sean1982]

The RTBF and HLN should maybe start with letting an expert read the official IAA report instead of them "tryiing" te read, interpret it and then writing and insanely bad article about it

[Passenger]

Is the RTBF really lying? I don't think so. Did O'Leary knew he was lying? Yes, I think he was. Why? Because he wants the discussion limited to the mayday call itself. But actually, it's Ryanair's general fuel policy that is at stake here. Allow me to repeat tolipanebas' first reply in this topic, because that makes clear what's the main issue:

Very briefly: in general, the law requires a commercial plane to always be able to reach its intended alternate and land there with a minimum of 30 minutes of (holding) fuel still left in the tanks after landing, at any time throuout its flight. If needed, the alternate and/or destination need to be changed in flight so as to always comply with this rule. If this can't be done for whatever reason, the captain needs to declare a mayday without any delay and ask for priority handling by ATC to get on the ground ASAP, which is exactly what they did.
As such,legally these cases were handled correctly by the crew, but the problematic thing is they had to declare a mayday because technicaly they broke the rule of making sure to have 30min of fuel left after landing at their alternate.
Now, you can say they weren't supposed to know there would be additional delays at VLC, but let's be real here: FR is not the only airline operating at MAD and MAD is not just a regional airport FR is so keen on, so if MAD is closed, you better do not count on being able to operate right up to the legal minimum; If everybody starts doing that, then VLC would have to issue a sequence number for arrivals with a mayday even!
So either those flights should have taken on board additional holding fuel before leaving, have selected an alternate nearer to MAD during their holding at MAD, or diverted sooner to VLC, possiby a combination of all 3 even, rather than fly out with the minimum legal, wait at MAD till that absolute minimum is reached, divert to the planned alternate and then rely on a priority handling over there, because by doing exactly this, they have shifted their self induced fuel problem on to other airplanes which are also on a diversion and now needed to make room for them and might have been running low on fuel too.
In short:these incidents have shown poor planning by FR, poor flight follow up by the crews, yet correct problem solving from the same crews, but far more importantly also far better planning and flight follow up by all other airlines and their crews also heading to VLC under exactly the same conditions so none of them were put into additional problems because of FR's somewhat egocentric attitude of not sufficiently taking into account the expected traffic density at their planned alternate in their flight plan and fuel calculations.
The obvious conclusion should be that if an airport like MAD, LHR, CDG or FRA closes down completely, it is utterly naive to expect that you wil be cleared for a straight in landing at whatever alternate you go to, so the theoretical rule of minimum legal fuel just won't be enough in the real world. Seems like FR either dont fully grasp this common wisdom, or decided to simply ignore it because there's no legal requirement to take the reality of the day and place into consideration.

[sean1982]

According to the report there is no issue with ryanairs general fuel policy, but only with the policy when operatin into the bigger airports with mixed traffic in bad weather. Im sure lessons will be learned and as I said before, FR always incorporates official recommendations into SOP's

[airazurxtror]

A lot of guys on this forum hope to discourage people from flying Ryanair - by desperatly going on posting the same comments on that old story.
I am sorry to disappoint them, but I have taken a few FR flights lately (two more last thursday) - and they were all fully booked, as usual !
It is a fact that an airline in financial difficulties is less sure : loss of morale and concentration amongst personnel about to be fired, corners cut everywhere including in security, and so on. Ryanair, at least, is financially sound.

[Passenger]

According to the report there is no issue with ryanairs general fuel policy, but only with the policy when operatin into the bigger airports with mixed traffic in bad weather. Im sure lessons will be learned and as I said before, FR always incorporates official recommendations into SOP's

A lot of guys on this forum hope to discourage people from flying Ryanair - by desperatly going on posting the same comments on that old story. I am sorry to disappoint them, but I have taken a few FR flights lately (two more last thursday) - and they were all fully booked, as usual ! It is a fact that an airline in financial difficulties is less sure : loss of morale and concentration amongst personnel about to be fired, corners cut everywhere including in security, and so on. Ryanair, at least, is financially sound.

Actually, this topic is indeed about Ryanair's fuel policy being unmasked as "cutting corners everywhere including in security".

[sean1982]

And where in the IAA report did you read that quote?
In another post you claim you're not here to bash ... Yet...

[Passenger]

And where in the IAA report did you read that quote?

It's not a quote from the IAA report, but a quote from your fellow Ryanair defender airazurxtror (read what he wrote: it's just above my reply to his remark).

[Inquirer]

A lot of guys on this forum hope to discourage people from flying Ryanair - by desperatly going on posting the same comments on that old story.
I am sorry to disappoint them, but I have taken a few FR flights lately (two more last thursday) - and they were all fully booked, as usual !

Since its not the first time you post in this way, allow me to ask what is your personal interest in posting any of the above?

You are repeatedly informing us why others post negatively about Ryanair (i.e. to discourage people from flying with them as they work for the competition), but pease could you tell us why you are seemingly working full time on the nightshift of ryanair's online PR team, so to say?

It's equally off putting, you know, as you are just as biased really.

[jan_olieslagers]

Baby Luchtzak is here again (not meaning any particular contributor, just the general tone and atmosphere).
Mods, do we/you really want this?

[sn26567]

Baby Luchtzak is here again (not meaning any particular contributor, just the general tone and atmosphere).
Mods, do we/you really want this?

Just deleted a few posts. The topic already looks cleaner...

[cnc]

According to the report there is no issue with ryanairs general fuel policy, but only with the policy when operatin into the bigger airports with mixed traffic in bad weather. Im sure lessons will be learned and as I said before, FR always incorporates official recommendations into SOP's

no excuses made and your reply is fair enough to end the discussion imo.

[regi]

The nasty thing about this subject is that in the long run, statistics will take their toll and Ryanair will have a kind of very serious thing for example a crash. ( doesn't need to be fatal, can be a nice belly landing, destroying the 3 checked luggage cases at most )
At that moment, all will say " I have told you so"

You all know my attitude towards Ryanair. But at this moment, it stays ahead of the negative statistics - and I do hope for everybody it stays that way.
And business wise? Well, it is a company, whose only reason of existance is to make profit. The way they do it doesn't please me, but I have no right to speak out as I am no share holder and no more passenger.

[sn26567]

It happens with others as well: (from The Aviation Herald)

Air Berlin B738 at Heraklion on Sep 21st 2012, landed below final fuel reserve

An Air Berlin Boeing 737-800, registration D-ABKJ performing flight AB-2242 from Munich (Germany) to Heraklion (Greece), was on approach to Heraklion's runway 09 when the crew aborted the approach and entered a hold for about 15 minutes before commencing the approach to runway 09. The aircraft however went around on final approach, climbed to FL110 and declared emergency reporting low fuel. The aircraft subsequently landed safely at Heraklion.

Germany's BFU reported in their monthly bulletin the aircraft landed below required final fuel reserve, Greece has opened an investigation into the serious incident. The reason(s) for the aborted approach and go-around were not mentioned.

[Boeing767copilot]

Ryanair makes legal threats against Aviation Herald


http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... on-herald/

[convair]

We all march behind Simon!

[sn26567]

Ryanair makes legal threats against Aviation Herald

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... on-herald/

Indeed. See this topic: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=49350

[sn26567]

Here we go again:

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=45a2df69

And the readers' comments become very soft after a recent legal threat.

[regi]

Freedom of speech?
Basic human right. If that is prevented, it proves that big companies can and do destroy our way of living in a democratic free society.

Strange that this website still exists:

http://www.ihateryanair.org/

( I think it is sponsored by tha airline under the umbrella "any news is also good news/advertising " )