Not content with getting rid of all the unpaid for frills onboard aircraft, such as meals, magazines and checked in luggage, Ryanair is now pondering getting rid of the pilots.
Not all of them, of course, just one out of every two on every Boeing 737.
In an interview with Bloomberg Business Week magazine, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said he could see no reason why it took two pilots to fly his aircraft when one pilot would do.
He said air stewards could stand in for the second pilot in an emergency.
Not surprisingly, pilots have dismissed O’Leary’s latest headline grabbing idea as ‘unwise and unsafe’.
The British Airline Pilots’ Association said the public would be ‘horrified’.
Fortunately for them, like many of O’Leary’s more outlandish ideas such as charging passengers for using loos onboard and launching standing room-only flights, this one is likely to be blocked by the regulatory authorities – for now.
By Linsey McNeill
