Golden Child:
There are about 15-20 of us Americans here at Emirates. We're furloughed USAir, United, and AA mostly. A couple of USAir DEC's (Direct Entry Captains).
The best place to get real time info on our situation here is on the PPrune message board, Middle East Forum.
http://www.pprune.org/forums/forumdi...c&daysprune=45
It's hard to sum it all up in a sentence but if you have a job, don't come here.
If anyone is really considering it, read PPrune to get a feel for the flavor, there's ranting, but I have not read anything on there that wasn't true.
To address your questions, yes there's a Villa, but you'll have to furnish it, Dubai is not a cushy lifestyle, there's traffic gridlock most of the day, everywhere. The airline will work you, there's no union/work rules/recourse, and the message from the company is basically: if you don't like it leave. Think 100hours a month, back of the clock, no credit pay for anything, only paid on scheduled block. If you have vacation in a month, you'll still fly a full months schedule in the remaining days of the month, again no credit/work rules. If you come as an FO, long time to upgrade, upgrade policy always changes so they can justify hiring more DEC's which are a cheaper solution. Anyway....
-Max