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#1 Ryanair Dublin, number one since 2023, and the training cost question is the one that stops half the applicants and the information in the groups mixes the old fee with the current structure and the agency with the direct. Here is the 2026 version from someone who went through the agency route, moved to direct, and has walked three batches through it since.
The fee and the structures
The course has a cost attached and how you pay it depends on the route in. The agency recruits (Crewlink, and the others in some markets) have historically paid a course fee, either up front with a discount or deducted from the salary over the first year, with the amount varying by year and agency and the deductions showing on the payslip (Ines's and Paulo's Porto threads have the agency numbers). The direct recruits in the markets where Ryanair recruits directly have had the course funded by the airline with a bond: no fee up front, a repayment clause if you leave within the bond period. The careers page and the offer letter state which applies to your base and intake, and the applicant should read the offer letter line by line before signing.
The repayment if you leave
The bond or the fee balance becomes repayable on a sliding scale if you leave before the period ends (commonly twelve months, sometimes longer). Leave in month three and most of it is owed; leave in month eleven and a fraction is. The recruits who leave in the first winter without reading the clause are the ones in the exit threads with the debt. Read the clause. Plan to stay the period.
The course week by week
Six weeks roughly, at the training centres (Dublin, East Midlands, Stansted, Bergamo, and others by base). Week one: induction, the company, the uniform, the basics of the aircraft, the first SEP. Weeks two and three: SEP in depth, the doors, the equipment, the drills, the first exams. Week four: the fire and smoke, the wet drill, the first aid, the exams. Week five: the service and the sales module (Connor's thread), the sales targets explained, the cabin service sequence. Week six: the consolidation, the final exams, the familiarisation flights. The exams are passed at 80 or above and a fail means a resit with one retake usually.
What the recruits wish they had known
That the course is unpaid or paid at a training allowance only, so the six weeks of accommodation and food are the recruit's cost, which hurts in Dublin and Stansted. That the base allocation comes near the end of the course and may not be the base you wanted. That the sales module is a real part of the job and the targets are real (Alex's thread). That the winter hours are low and the first winter is the test. And that the fee or bond is worth it for the people who stay two years and get the direct contract and the number one position, and a bad deal for the ones who leave in month four.
For the applicants
Find out which structure applies to your base and intake before the assessment, read the offer letter clause, budget the six weeks of living costs, and decide to stay the bond period before you sign. The course is good training. The cost is the price of the door and the door is worth it if you walk through and stay.
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#2 Week 2 in Dublin, and the week by week is exactly my course so far and the sales module next week is the one I am reading about. The living costs for the six weeks in Dublin are the thing I underbudgeted. Liam's thread should be handed out at the assessment.
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#3 Porto, and the agency fee deducted from the salary over the first year is the Porto structure and the payslip shows it every month, as Liam says, and the clause about leaving was the thing I read three times. The sliding scale is real. Plan to stay the twelve months.
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#4 Porto, agency to direct, and the move to direct after the agency period is the thing that makes the fee worth it: the direct contract and the number one position and the fee behind you. The ones who left in month four paid for a course they did not use. Liam's honest line.
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#5 Dublin, direct, three years, and the sales module being a real part of the job with real targets is the week five truth and the recruits who treat it as a joke are the ones the base manager talks to in month two. Liam has the course and the cost in one thread.
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#6 Stansted, number one since March, and the base allocation near the end of the course not being the base you wanted is the Stansted story: half my course wanted Dublin or Manchester and got Stansted. The living costs in Stansted for the six weeks are Dublin level. Budget it.
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#7 Bergamo, six years, number one, and the Bergamo training centre runs the same six weeks and the Italian recruits ask the same fee question every intake. The direct in Italy with the bond is the structure here now. Read the offer letter, as Liam says, line by line.
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#8 Galway, applying this winter, and the fee versus bond versus agency versus direct was the thing I could not untangle from the groups and this thread untangles it: find out which applies to your base, read the clause, budget the six weeks, stay the period. Thank you Liam.
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#9 @danny1999 the Dublin intake structure is on the offer letter and the recruiter will tell you which applies if you ask at the assessment, and asking is a good look. @seanstn the base allocation lottery is the course's last surprise and nobody warns about it.
