Tim,
I begin to believe that the culture of "Global Business" has evolved to the point where they see no other policy than to drive down costs by outsourcing everything possible.
They do this because they believe the public want everything as cheaply as possible (and I believe this is the case) and need to achieve the lowest cost/price, without damaging investor returns.
My own employer is a privately held global entity with 52,000 employees. It has outsources HR, Recruiting, IT support, Travel booking and Expense Management to third parties. The result is that employees can't talk to anyone, so they have to communicate with the providers through web portals and raising a "ticket".
The result is that highly paid specialists spend more and more time dealing with personal administration and not the proper job. This breeds frustration: we see a steady loss of good people. The closure of the final salary pay scheme hasn't helped, either. On top of that we have a recruitment freeze and travel restrictions.
So profitability is increased as wages and costs are kept down. Why do they need more profit? So they can buy another business and feed the monster.
I would, if I was 50, be looking for another job with a SME, not a massive global machine.
Back to Ryanair: they want to fly more and more tourists to more and more destinations, at the lowest possible price. the public want this.
Well, if the public want this sort of provider then they should stop whining about the consequences.
I have never flown any of the cheap airlines and, despite pressure from top management, I never will.
