OK just had a timely conversation with an accountant who reckons on a recent flight to AGP it made VERY good time. He suggested (with some basis, I figure) that the accountants at RYR know that with less fuel on board their flight time is shorter therefore their profit greater.
Not beyond the wit of others than accountants, I'd venture???

I may have believed it was a genuine call on one occasion but to make a regular occurrence of fuel shortage and repeatedly put other flights at serious risk I would think highly unlikely.

The civil aviation authorities simply wouldn't stand for it and would be straight down on their heads like a ton of bricks

Yes, we've all heard that, but you don't get away with mayday calls without a good reason. If it was that easy, why aren't all the other budget airlines pulling the same stunt? You think they could just keep using that excuse and get away with it. It's a fact Ryanair carry the legal minimum of fuel, once diverted and stacked they're struggling. They won't have been the only aircraft diverted from Madrid. Their pilots have been reminded twice by Ryanair about not carrying any more than they have to.

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There's maybe a degree of truth to both points of view.
There has been quite a lot of friction in recent times between Ryanair and Spanish airport authorities, Ryan air having the upper hand by simply withdrawing services whenever they feel they are being ripped off.

It's a fairly well known fact that neither Spanish airports nor their airlines could run a p!ss up at a brewery.
I imagine they are green with envy to see another airline who they dont get along with, operate in and out of their airspace with such efficiency.

It would be of little surprise to find that they don't do Ryanair any favours and put them first in line for diversions.
Likewise in response it would be no surprise to see Ryanair pilots respond rather than risk being pissed about once again at their alternative destination.

As I mentioned previously, if they repeatedly got caught out unecessarilly causing high risk situations I'm pretty certain they'd have been in very serious trouble with the civil aviation authority long before now.

That's simply my take on a possible senario and no I make no claims at all to be any sort of expert on aviation.

There's a news bulletin on the Spanish news on the internet with the recording of the RA pilot making a mayday. If they are low on fuel, it's a pan call, if it's an emergency, it's a mayday. If making a mayday call, normal procedure is to ask "Are you declaring an emergency". If the answer is yes, they get priority landing, if not they wait in the queue like everyone else. My point is you just can't declare an emergency to jump the queue, certainly not three (although they are now saying four) aircraft at once. Read some of the pilots thoughts on an airline pilots forum, read what the RA pilots themselves say. For instance the base manager at Stanstead is paid according to how much fuel they take, the less the better his bonus, pilots are "encouraged" to take less fuel. They can take more, but have to submit a letter of explanation if they take more than the max quoted amount of fuel. It operates a league table, and as one pilots says "I'd rather come bottom of the table and land with some fuel left"

The Spanish authorities have every incentive to make political capital out of this in view of their on running altercations with Ryanair.

They also have every reason to make maximum commercial capital from it whilst trying desperately to do a copy of RA and get their own budget airline a piece of the action.

If any of these situations had been critical do you not think the passengers would have been informed ?
I am not aware of any such reports and as we saw on the 777 Heathrow incident if engines cut on final approach there's not much the crew can about it.

Were these aircraft not advised to divert before reaching Madrid ?
If so the difference in kms would surely have been almost negligible I.e.no risk at all.

If Madrid control waited till they arrived before diverting them, then the question arises were they deliberately playing silly buggers and in any event if the crew were concerned about their ability to reach Valencia, as they surely would be if in danger, then surely they would simply have requested priority at Madrid.

In any event the planes all landed safely and as far as I'm aware the passengers weren't warned to prepare for impending doom,which I have little doubt would have been the case had the situation been critical.

Whilst I understand the drive to avoid carrying excess fuel at the end of the day the crews would always be expected to err on the side of safety and I doubt very much they'd ever be deliberately foolish enough to put their own lives at risk.

It's only my opinion of course but looking at the facts as reported it appears to me to simply be a case of RA and the Spanish trying every trick in the book to get one over on each other and little else.

http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/madri...lencia-26-july

All safe and sound procedure done according to the book as per this RA link.

Would you expect any different from RA? To their credit, they haven't killed anyone yet. From a former RA pilot, who probably knows less than you.

Yeh, most of that is common knowledge and most flight crews prefer just to use RA as a stepping stone to better pay and conditions if they can.

However to what extent safety is compromised, if at all, I know not.
Maybe there's a lot to be said for keeping staff on their toes all the time.

As RA has one of the worlds biggest fleets it's almost inevitable that something will go a little bit wrong or worse at sometime in the future.

It's also just as inevitable that there'll be a million and one knockers who can't wait to say I told you so,..........regardless of the real reason it happened.

RA are an easy target but it does not stop millions of people using their services, and as the man himself says " If you don't want to fly with RA then don't ( or words to that effect)

Also to consider is that RA run one of the most modern and up to date fleets in the world, whereas some carriers including some big names are operating a good percentage of ancient planes, as well as others that are second and third hand.

I have had to travel back and forth umpteen times this year UK to Spain using RA and have become increasingly worried at the amount of problems they are having with their planes ranging from steps that wouldnt retract right up to changing plane because of mechanical faults.

I am amazed that no-one has died from lack of oxygen either, it was pretty frightening when nearly all the passengers slept (young and old) on one trip.


Cant use another airline, I fly from Valencia to E mids to get to Yorkshire.

It seems they might even get kicked out of Spain completely!

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news...le_35533.shtml

Something doesn't seem right with those news reports, and it's interesting that none of them state the origination of the flights.

If the plane was flying down to Madrid from Ireland or the UK, then surely any diversion would be to Bilbao, Valladolid or to Zaragoza. Why Valencia?

Of course the planes could have been coming from an easterly direction, perhaps from Italy or Austria. In which case they would actually be using less fuel to fly to Valencia.

Agree, it's obvious the mayday calls would be investigated, but some people here think you simply make them to jump the queue waiting to land! Thankfully AENA take the situation a bit more seriously than our experts here. Loads of planes diverted, three RA planes making mayday's!