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Comment by throwawayflyboy | Hacker News Reader

> They also have poorly trained pilots, who either aren’t qualified for ILS or aren’t confident in poor conditions - on numerous occasions I’ve been on flights which they’ve diverted (Bristol becomes Birmingham, Bergerac becomes Toulouse, Porto becomes Madrid) because of weather, while other airlines land and take off without issue.

This is straight-up defamatory. Ryanair have similar entry requirements to the majors, much better training and equipment, and the best safety record of any airline in the world. No one gets an EASA Part FCL without ILS, and every Ryanair pilot will be absolutely confident in ILS approaches - most will have done far more than other airline pilots.

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The lady doth protest far too much.

So why can’t they land or take off in fog or rain, when other airlines can? I’m guessing you work for them, so I’d love an explanation.

Cheap insurance policies that don’t cover it?

I’ve also experienced more atrocious landings with Ryanair than any other airline - flaring late, early, or not at all - they must spend a fortune repairing undercarriage.

I don’t buy it. Bargain basement airline, bargain basement pilots.

I mean, if they were any good, they’d fly for one of the majors, rather than a notoriously mean employer, no?

I have no reason to doubt that their pilots are trained as well as other pilots. However, I also have no reason to believe they are trained any better.

Do you have any reference to the claim of "much better training" and "far more [ILS approaches] than other airline pilots"?

Ryanair is simply a young airline that only recently grew in size. Their safety record is practically blank and hardly qualifies them as the best in the business.

Hawaii Airlines for example has not had a single fatal crash since it’s founding in 1929.

Ryanair is 34 years old and flew more PAX in the last two years than Hawaiian has in its entire history, with significantly fewer accidents and incidents, even if you only consider those that occurred while both airlines were flying. It's hard to find historical PAX numbers for Hawaiian, but it seems that Ryanair overtook them at some point in 2000.

I don't see any basis for your claim that their safety record is "practically blank". They are widely considered the world's safest airline - a spot they shared with Southwest until ‎SWA1380.

If you compare crashes per flight by year, the entire industry has become safer over time. The expected number of crashes given their operating history assuming an average airline would likely be zero. In fact over 20 major airlines currently having a clean record. So, on it’s own that’s really not enough information to say anything.

If we are trying to find ‘the best’ airline in the industry you need to either consider only current practices/equipment etc, or look for airlines with zero crashes despite higher expected lifetime risks.

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