I was reading the Irish Times this morning when I found an interesting article about three ‘Maydays’ made by Ryanair planes in Spain recently. It appears that Ryanair frowns on pilots taking too much fuel with them, and maintains a league table of how much each pilot takes. Apparently those taking the most receive warning letters.
RYANAIR HAS denied passengers are being put at risk after three of its pilots issued separate Mayday calls in Spain last month due to dwindling fuel supplies.
The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association claimed yesterday the corporate culture at the airline was responsible after it emerged that Spain’s aviation safety agency was investigating three emergency landings by Ryanair planes at Valencia airport on July 26th.
Seems to another reason to avoid the airline to me.
This is nothing new. Captain Dave writes about this time and time again in his rather brilliant blog about his job as a narrow-body Airbus captain at a US airline.
http://flightlevel390.blogspot.com/