Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
Life sounds sweet in Podunk, [insert State] for you. What was your point, again? Dubai isn't like Podunk where you live. You pay for transportation, you pay for schooling (and you're gonna want to send them to a British or an American school --- you know how expensive that is?), and and of course the single biggest thing you neglected to mention was the housing provided.
Provided housing is an apple/oranges comparison. My $200K condo I bough 10 years ago is now a $480K asset that is almost paid off. I'm glad I'm not provided free housing because I would have missed out on owning my asset. I toured the provided housing, and it's the last place on earth I'd want to live, not to mention the UAE/Qatar in general. A lot of pilots dragged their families over there and discontent set in fairly quickly for most, especially the wives. The 3 in my interview group that took the job are now divorced and looking to return back to the USA. I keep in touch with them and they aren't happy campers, neither are most of the expats over there. They are being abused and dumped on by the company and the society. I know you have never done it but augmented ULH flying is hard enough and guess what, most of EKs routes are flown un-augmented. They fly rosters that aren't even close to allowed by 117 and most PWA's. As others have said, transportation to/from work and free schools aren't any value to most people. In America, most pilots live in pretty good communities that have great public schools.