Original post by askew116The first near miss, I witnessed when I was in training as a baggage-handler, and we were being taken on a tour of the airport (the tarmac, runways and taxiways, not the terminal), so we parked up on a small road at the very start of the runway, and there was very strong cross-wind - about 30-40knots. There was a Ryanair plane on approach, and our trainer said to us that this plane would be doing a missed-approach, as the cross-wind component was too strong to make a safe landing. You could really see the pilots struggling to keep the plane aligned, and on the right glideslope, and he ended up landing about half-way down the runway, when they're meant to aim for touchdown at most a quarter of the way down the runway.
The second time, I was working as a dispatcher by that point, and I was doing paperwork in the office. Now the company I worked for was a handling agent, taking care of various airport jobs, including dispatch, that the airlines contract out. There was a big speaker in the office, that was tuned in to Tower Operations of Air Traffic Control. ATC instructed an outbound Ryanair to hold short of a runway it was routed to cross, while another plane did a takeoff. The pilots argued with ATC over the frequency, stating that they had time to cross the runway, and they ended up not-complying with the instruction, causing the departing Virgin 747 to abort its takeoff due to Ryanair's runway incursion.
With regard to fuel policies, again, Ryanair pilots often argue with Air Traffic Control when instructed to go into a holding pattern on approach, increasing the stress level of the controllers, in what is an already highly stressful job, therefore increasing the likelihood of that controller making a mistake, either with the Ryanair its servicing, or another aircraft.
I'm not saying that Ryanair is a dangerous airline, per se, as they, like other airlines, operate dozens, if not hundreds of flights per day, and these are likely isolated incidents. However, they are incidents that, in my opinion, represent the tip of the iceberg, and having met and worked with hundreds of pilots over dozens of airlines, I feel that Ryanair is an airline that is willing to 'chance' skirting around safety laws as and when it can get away with it. For that reason, I will never fly with them.
I hasten to add that I'm not against no-frills airlines per se, I've flown with these airlines, including Monarch, and Flybe, and I would fly with Easyjet if they operated a route I was looking to fly, but Ryanair, I just won't fly with on principle.