Originally Posted by
marick01
If there is anyone one here that lives in Dubai as an Emirates Pilot or spouse of a pilot. Have you taken your pets with you to Dubai? If so how did that work for you, do they provide pet friendly housing? Also to any spouses, how do you like living in Dubai? Do you have jobs as well? Any information you have would be greatly appreciated, my husband has applied and I am just trying to get a sense of what to expect since they don't have any information sessions secheduled. Thanks!!
Hello marick, I am a recent joiner at Emirates, and am in the final process of bring our dog to Dubai. My wife has just dropped her off at the emirates skycargo office in DFW. The process can be a bit stressful and time consuming so be prepared to start the process atleast two months ahead of your travel date. Mersant international handles the transport of live animals for Skycargo, I was given their contact info from my HR coordinator. They sent us all the information needed as to what documents and veterinary requirements we needed. In order to streamline the process here in Dubai it's best to have all procedures done by your local vet. All pets need to be microchipped, and all vaccinations need to be current within a certain time I think 6 months. Finally, your vet will need to fill out a basic health certificate stating that your dog is fit for air travel, that is only valid for 30 days according to the ministry in Dubai. I think that is about it on the state side, in order to gain entry into Dubai your pets also need a entry permit, this is done at
http://petimport.moew.gov.ae/defaulten.aspx. Mersant was really good with all of this, we made the online application, sent them all of the vets paperwork and they took care of the rest. My wife was me this morning by a rep from mersant, and had all the paperwork ready to go, check in took less than an hour. I will have to let you know later what happens on this end in Dubai. So far the total cost is just under $2k, we have a large dog weighing about 60lbs. and unfortunately the company does not cover that. It's fully out of your pocket.
As for the housing, there was an option to request pet friendly accommodations, but there is no guarantee that you will get one. I did not request one, yet I got a 3 bedroom apartment which used to be a block of villas and was converted into apartments. Right now there is a very long wait for villas.
With regards to information about how the wives like Dubai, I would recommend going onto facebook. My wife has found a couple of groups there that are only for wives and girlfriends of pilots. There are few ladies there that live here in Dubai and they can give you some helpful information. One of them is called "Pilots' wives", and the other is "Wives & Girlfriends (or Boyfriends & Husbands) of Pilots".
Hope this helps, if you have any questions, just ask away.