Ryanair's CEO Suggests Eliminating Co-Pilots

postbigbang writes "Ryanair's miser-in-chief Michael O'Leary now suggests eliminating co-pilots as a way to save money. Will airliners be powered by drones, or is it actually viable to have just a single pilot on passenger planes?"

Slashdot suggests eliminating VPs to reduce cost

[Solandri]

Should an emergency arise, the CEO could ring a bell and a specially trained board member could come in and take over running the company.

Old joke

[Anne Honime]

Frankly, I believe that computers make fewer mistakes than humans, so I would in fact prefer a plane with a single (or no) human pilots.

Reminds me :

Q: What is the ideal cockpit crew?
A: A pilot and a dog...the pilot is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to bite the pilot in case he tries to touch anything.

Re:Slashdot suggests eliminating VPs to reduce cos

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, the idea is someone other than the CEO takes over running things.

Re:Waste

[Forge]

How about dumping the flight attendants? On short flights and budget airlines, they hardly serve a purpose. (Unless you were going to follow the suggestion of lowering the educational requirements and removing the uniforms... Ohh... and adding some music, mood lighting and garters designed for holding cash.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Passengers

[SleepyHappyDoc]

They should get rid of all the passengers. Think about it....they wouldn't have to pay for meals, they could fire all the flight attendants and save that salary money, the seats on the planes wouldn't be needed anymore. They'd even save on fuel, since the planes would be so much lighter without all those people on board.

Re:You don't want the best, you want cheap.

[Hazelfield]

Ryanair isn't an airline company. It's a social experiment to see how far people are willing to humiliate themselves for getting cheap tickets.

In other cost savings news...

[FranTaylor]

RyanAir's co-pilots suggest eliminating the CEO position as a way to cut costs.

After all, when cutting costs, start first with things that don't contribute directly to the bottom line, and don't affect safety...

Crowdsourcing is the answer to everything!

[NotBornYesterday]

It looks like there are a few hundred dials, switches, and controls in the cockpit. Let's say you have a plane with about a hundred seats. Mount a few dials and switches at each seat and crowdsource your cockpit crew. Hold a lottery to see who gets the yoke. What could possibly go wrong?

Plus, they could crowdsource all their DBA needs here on slashdot.

Re:Waste

[davemc168]

I heard from a pilot that ryanair do not pay their co-pilots. They gain valuable experience instead. I'll try to confirm.

Re:Waste

[RMH101]

"Stewardesses" - the longest word that can be typed using just the left hand. Coincidence?