'Relentless from the minute you check in'

Before ‘Blue Monday’ entered our collective vocabulary, it started as a press release issued by a travel company.

In 2005, Sky Travel declared the third Monday of January ‘the most depressing day of the year’ – and so began an unofficial day of observance that has been seized on by both big business and mental health charities alike.  

Ryanair is no stranger to ‘Blue Monday’, which took place last month. Every year, the budget airline puts on a ‘Blue Monday’ sale, offering cut-price airfares.

But even as the company embraces a day often used to raise awareness of mental ill health, they’re refusing to acknowledge the endless ‘Blue Monday’ its very own crew are now enduring, with staff morale at an all-time low.

Unite recently undertook a survey of its members employed by Ryanair and the results reveal shocking levels of workplace stress.

More than 85 per cent reported feeling stressed or anxious after a performance review meeting, with nearly 75 per cent saying they felt stressed or anxious after simply speaking with their managers.

Almost 80 per cent reported they’d had their sleep disturbed by a phone call or text from their employer on their day off or on a night before work. A similar percentage said they could not switch off or forget about work on holidays or days off. A further 70 per cent of those surveyed said they did not feel their employer supported their life-work balance.

Targets

UniteLive spoke to Ryanair members on condition of anonymity, and they all reported being at the end of their tether.

Ryanair cabin crew member Angela* has worked for several other major airlines and has never felt under so much pressure working for Ryanair. She becomes nearly breathless reeling off a laundry list of duties that she and her colleagues must carry out before the flight even takes off.

While such duties, including safety and other pre-flight checks, are standard in the industry, it’s the speed with which they must be undertaken, under the watchful eye of a manager waiting for crew to make even the smallest mistake, which is unique to Ryanair.

“It’s relentless from the minute you check in,” she said. “There’s pressure to make sure all your checks done, pressure to get the card machine up and running, pressure to get the order to seat on while passengers are boarding, pressure to greet everybody, pressure to get the doors closed.”

As if cabin crew’s countless tasks before the flight weren’t enough, the pressure only begins once the flight takes off. Ryanair is unique among airlines for saddling crew with significant in-flight sales targets. If crew don’t hit these targets, they can face sanction – they could be given an official warning, for example, or even be demoted.  

As members reported in the survey, more than 90 per cent said that sales targets were only ‘sometimes achievable’ or ‘completely unachievable’.

Ryanair sales targets are based solely on the number of passengers, with the company failing to consider mitigating factors – to the point absurdity.

Sales targets remain the same, for example, even if it’s a very early morning flight, when lights must be off for take-off and landing, and most passengers spend the flight asleep.

“You’re not going to start waking passengers up, saying, ‘give me your money’, are you?” Angela said. “We’re pressured to do multiple services on these flights, to put the lights on full blast – to essentially irritate people until they buy something. It’s embarrassing.”

She adds that sales targets on domestic flights have become impossible to achieve after the airline stopped selling alcohol on these flights.

“On all flights, alcohol is our biggest seller by far. When they stopped selling alcohol on domestic flights, our sales plummeted, but our targets didn’t change.”

UniteLive was shown a standardised email from management to a crew member who had taken time off after an illness. The email not only castigated the worker for taking sick days but also highlighted their underperformance on sales targets with specific figures, noting that they were selling X percentage under the average. The email said not meeting targets was ‘unacceptable’.

Variable pay

Another huge source of anxiety for Ryanair crew is their pay, which has fluctuated significantly over the last year. This is because, in anticipation for what was to be the busiest summer for travel since before the pandemic, Ryanair over-recruited cabin crew. When the expected busy summer didn’t happen, the glut of staff meant that individual workers’ variable pay, which is paid for hours flown on top of their basic pay, plunged.

“The difference we’re seeing in our pay packets from one month to the next can be wild,” Ryanair cabin crew Tim* told UniteLive. “If you’re not doing at least 40 to 50 hours a month, which is normal now, you know you’re going to struggle. Before the pandemic, I was maxing out every month – 80 to 85 hours. We’re nowhere near that now.” Ryanair cabin crew only receive variable pay for time spent in the air, and strict limitations are in place on these hours.

Tim added that it’s not unusual to be £300 to £400 short of what he normally expects each month. Angela agreed, saying most crew she knows work two jobs to make ends meet. As the sole breadwinner in her family with young children, she described her take home pay as “diabolical”.

“I’m barely clearing £1700 if I’m lucky. How is a family of four meant to live on that?”

Angela said it was particularly demoralising to see her pay slip showing much higher headline pay, only for the figure to be eaten up by deduction after deduction:  for example, for parking –which no other airline charges its staff for.

Angela described the impossible situation she’s found herself in.

“People say why don’t you fly more? It’s not up to me; I can only work the hours I’m rostered and with so many crew, it’s not unusual to only be flying two or three days a week. People also say why don’t you go work for another airline. It’s not that easy. I can’t afford to start with another airline where I have to take an unpaid induction course. I’ve got to have money coming in for my kids.”

Toxic culture

Ryanair cabin crew member Robert* tells UniteLive that the horrendous way supervisors treat staff is not an accident; it’s not the result of a few bad apples. It’s an intentional workplace culture.

Robert pointed to Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who’s infamous for his inflammatory remarks in the media. O’Leary was once quoted as dismissing the notion that a company’s staff are its biggest asset, saying, “Bulls**t! They’re your biggest cost!”

“For him, we’re not here to make the company better,” Robert said. “We’re here as an unfortunate expense. And this mentality comes directly from him, down to upper management, and down to our managers. It’s a totally toxic culture.”

Robert says this toxic culture is apparent in management’s attitude to mental health.

“I’ve heard a manager literally say, ‘mental health doesn’t exist’. If you come to them and say you’re under a lot of pressure, or you’re not feeling well, they mock you. They say, ‘If I can deal with the pressure, so can you’. This really worries me because it can drive people to the edge – you don’t know what might happen to someone one day.”

Changing this toxic culture and making Ryanair a good place to work is a gargantuan task – one that’s only possible, Robert believes, with a strong union.

“Everyone at Ryanair should join Unite, because it’s the only way things will change – the day we’re prepared to take industrial action is the day that they’ll actually listen to us,” Robert noted.

Unite branch secretary Laszlo Marothy also urged all Ryanair workers to come forward and join Unite. He highlighted a three-point collective grievance Unite has lodged with the company over several issues that may have also impacted members’ mental health.

This includes significant pay losses over the last year because of plunging variable pay, as well as changes to the annual leave system which forces workers to take more than half of their holiday entitlement over four months in the winter.

This was a sudden change – before they had to take only a quarter of their annual leave days in the winter, which the workforce accepted.  

So far, management has refused to meaningfully engage with any of the points raised by the collective grievance or the results of the mental health survey. Unite members reported that management claimed the survey responses were from ‘a tiny number’ of staff and weren’t representative of the ‘real Ryanair’ experience.

This ‘real experience’ they claim to measure through engagement on an internal social media platform called FleetHub and by base visits conducted by site managers. But all Ryanair cabin crew UniteLive spoke to highlighted the fact that supervisors constantly pressure staff to ‘like’ posts on FleetHub, even though engaging with the platform is not mandatory.

Ultimately, Unite has argued that as an employer, Ryanair has a duty of care to look after staff mental health. This can include surveying the workforce, which they’ve never done. FRUnite, the Unite branch for Ryanair cabin crew, has done it for them – and now it’s up to management to do their own analysis, and to act. But the results speak for themselves – the survey indicates there could be a serious problem with crew mental health at Ryanair in the UK, and there is a serious lack of a support system to deal with it.

Unite reps at Ryanair believe that management doesn’t seem to think there is a mental health issue within the organisation. At their last face-to-face meeting, FRUnite’s suggestion to have a mental health nurse available for cabin crew, along with mental health first aider training, was rejected outright. Ryanair simply said, “It might not be the right thing to do.”

Have you experienced some of the issues raised in this article? If so, you can find out more about FRUnite, and how you can join, here

*Names changed to protect privacy

By Hajera Blagg