If you fly Ryanair, or flew it a couple of times, how would you say their landings were? I've seen that the airline has reputation for making hard landings.

 

 

I do, understand that there are many young pilots working for the airline, so don't bash me on that.

If you fly Ryanair, or flew it a couple of times, how would you say their landings were? I've seen that the airline has reputation for making hard landings.

 

 

I do, understand that there are many young pilots working for the airline, so don't bash me on that.

 

I've heard that they do, but the few times I've flow with them, the landing didn't seem in any way unusual. 

 

I was told that the reason for they hard landings is that they like to get off the runway at the first taxiway because less time spent taxiing means more chance of turning around on time. I'm not sure how true it is, though.

I flew just once with Ryanair, that was actually the first time for me, in an older 737, and I was expecting a bump on landing, but I was surprised how gentle the aircraft touched down. I think it has more to do with the pilot (general mentality, his experience and mood), the weather, if they are in a hurry, etc. than for which company a pilot flies.

They are copying Southwest's model. If you make the first taxiway, you stand a better chance of a 10 minute turnaround. Straight from a pilot's mouth.

 

Bill W

I've only experienced one hard landing with Ryanair, but it was sufficiently hard for the flight attendant to observe that it was the FO landing and that he was quite new.

What is a "hard" landing? You will find that all British airlines from BA down habitually do what they call "positive" landings. On other words deliberately avoiding "greasers". Because they take up much more runway and can be extremely dangerous on a wet runway if you are habituated to doing them.

if you do a bad 'greaser' yes

There may be a discussion on "how hard is hard", however I fly on Ryanair (737-800) and Easyjet (airbus) in roughly equal proportions and Ryanair invariably land much harder than Easy, even at the same airports.  Always wondered if it was due to the equipment. 

Back when I got my CPL a while ago, I had the choice of either going for a CFI and flight instruct or going to Ryanair where if you pay, I believe it was equivalent of $50K USD back then, they will train you to get your type rating on the 737 and then line experience afterwards even if you just got your CPL. Imagine having only C172 time to time in 737. So yes, I can see why there may be more hard landings because it's probably a brand new FO who only has a couple hundred hours of TT at best.

I remember watching Ryanair 737-200s taxi back in the day, and I seem to recall that the taxi speed was just short of V1....

I have flown with Ryanair and many other 738 airlines to airports with short runways. Thankfully they do not try to "grease" the landings. :smile:

... the taxi speed was just short of V1....

 

 

Love it! 

 

I can imagine there's a fine line between making that first taxiway, and frying the brakes thus rendering a short turn-around time irrelevant...

There may be a discussion on "how hard is hard", however I fly on Ryanair (737-800) and Easyjet (airbus) in roughly equal proportions and Ryanair invariably land much harder than Easy, even at the same airports.  Always wondered if it was due to the equipment. 

I always felt that Airbus aircraft seem to have that "bumpy" feel when on the runway or so compared to Boeing aircraft.

On the occasions I've flown with Ryanair, I've never noticed anything unusual about the landing.

 

Quite apart from anything else, it's absolutely impossible to do any sort of comparison. Unless you're sitting in the same seat, on the same type of aircraft, in the same weather conditions at the same airport then any comparisons between how "hard" one landing was compared to another are impossible. What feels hard in one part of the aircraft might feel smooth in another, and different aircraft types will feel different as well.

 

Ryanair pilots do not land any harder or softer than pilots of any other airlines. Yes, they employ lots of young/inexperienced pilots, but so do plenty of other airlines across Europe and the world. Whatever people might say, Ryanair have a huge emphasis on safety: they are smart enough to realise that an accident would be bad for business, and everybody I know who works for them says the training is to a very high standard and taken extremely seriously. It is also something of a fallacy to suggest that you just pay your type rating money and automatically get a job: the standard required is extremely high and there are many who do not make it.

 

FR do, of course, operate in to plenty of regional airfields with limiting runways, "interesting" approaches, etc etc. Naturally the emphasis in these sorts of places is to get the aeroplane on the ground in the touchdown zone and stopping, but that applies frankly whichever airline you fly for (except, perhaps, some less reputable operators in places like Indonesia where you may get a lovely smooth touchdown right up until the moment you go off the end at high speed. I know which I would prefer).

This is a ridiculous conversation.  Why should Ryanair's landings be different from the multitude of other landings?