Ryanair boss says air stewardesses should be allowed to land planes in an emergency

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... gency.html


Stupid idea. Though considering the extra training that the stewardess would need will they pay for that, or pay extra as a stewardess as a back up pilot? Probably not so it will not be a starter for that reason alone.

They're essentially trying to get pilots on the cheap - primary job is air stewardess, hence gets paid air stewardess salary. But if there's an emergency, they can act as back-up pilot. Means saves on not having a second pilot.

This has already been done in the NHS - you have a billion people trying to do the work of a doctor, with a little more pay but none of the responsibility. After all, it's cheaper than training doctors, so it must be right(!).






And it's why people are dying. There are some very good nurse practitioners, nurse consultants, advanced clinical practitioners, physician assistants etc but the majority (>95%) are crap. They're all doing the jobs of junior doctors. Except it doesn't take as much to pay them (six week course as opposed to 5-6 years medical school). Consequently, junior doctors get less exposure and less experience - so you'll end up with crap consultants who have about a tenth of the experience of an old-school consultant.

It would have sounded so much better (though still stupid) if he'd said "Co-pilot should help serve drinks".

Nobody figured out that he just does this every now and then to get free publicity?

It'll be the same as the seatless flights, Ryanair officials will later come out and say it's just an idea that they're not going to implement.

But nurses now have to have degrees to get even started. I would prefer a unqualified nurse who has empathy and cares over some educated nurse who thinks that the ill are all malingerers.

Yes but can this help? Compromising safety for a few extra quid off the air fare? Years ago there used to be flight engineers in the cockpit as well.

If I was cabin crew trained to land a jet, I'd get a better paied job as a co-pilot with another airline.

Yes they would need to pay a lot more to keep them.

I wonder if they've actually asked the air stewardesses if they want to train as a pilot - I suspect the vast majority wouldn't want that responsibility put on their shoulders. In situations of extreme danger, like this, I imagine all their training would disappear from their mind unless they were piloting (if that's a word!) on a daily basis.

Nursing IMO is something that never needed a degree but could be learnt as a diploma of some kind. I think it became a degree so it was taken more seriously and recognised as a profession.

I've seen some fantastic care from nurses and some shockingly crap care from nurses. Ditto with doctors.

My aunt was a nurse. She ending up as head Sister for three hospitals in Hampshire, simultaneously. I cant see who needed to be shown that it was a profession apart from the government. The public took nurses seriously.

But that's my point, they have no intention doing this it just gets lots of free publicity on prime time TV.

The media really should be much more aware of such claims.

There is such a thing as bad publicity you know. I can't imagine the head of an airline coming out and saying "I don't give a toss about your safety" is actually going to get them any more customers.

In any case, I think as far as Ryan Air goes they're pretty much publicity proof. You either tolerate their god-awful flights simply because of the up-front price or you won't touch them with a bargepole - there can't be many people who haven't made up their minds by now.

Jon

I would use Ryanair as a last resort, but since i can be very flexible I doubt that I will need to fly with them again. The actual flight was acceptable, it was everything before and after that was a pain.