Hi all. I am scheduled for the Emirates interview Aug. 27-29. I know Emirates doesn't give feedback on the interview process, but I would be interested to know what your perspective is as to why you were or weren't successful. Anything in particular they are looking for or specifically don't want to see?

Thanks for any insight you can give.

So how is the QOL over there? I see the large allowance for school, but how are the schools? And will the allowance cover it? How's the company provided housing? How much/often are you gone? Good expat community for spouse?

QOL is a subjective area. It would all depend on what you deifine as a good QOL. Personally I find it pretty good, others do not.

The allowance is not large when it comes to the schools. It is enough to pay for most of the cost of the British or International Schools, but the American schools are far more expensive for some reason. You will be substantially out of pocket for American Schools, especially in grades 1 through 5. The quality of the schools reasonable.

The company housing is reasonable. I like my villa and it's location, but again this is a personal preference. First Officers without children are allocated apartments which can range from less than adequate to very nice. It's all the luck of the draw.

Expect to fly 900 hours per year and be gone ( i.e on an overnight ) an average of 10 days per month. Instructors are home far more which could become a choice down the road and is one of the big draws to the position.

It's a pretty good expat community and really up to the spouse how much or how little she becomes involved.

That all said, and based on Qpilot's experience it appears unlikely they are willing to hire somebody straight out of the U.S. military. A stint at an airline appears to be required.



Typhoonpiolot

I know you have nothing to do with recruitment, however, why would the recruitment people bring in people such as Qpilot if they have no intention of employing him? Seems to be a waste of his time and theirs. Why did it take EK 3 months to tell the poor guy they were not interested? It only took EK 4 weeks to tell me to get lost. Seems to me it would not take too long to send out the generic, "thanks but no thanks" email. Just a couple of key strokes.
As we talked about at lunch Ty, it is very hard to figure out what they are looking for.

I don't know for sure, but there seems to have been a disconnect with QPilot. Recruiting wanted him, but somebody higher up said no.

TP

TP,

For those of us with an instructional background, how tough is it to wind up as a sim instructor down the road? And how is the pay in comparison to normal line pay? Can FOs be hired into the training dept?

Thanks for your past insights,

Walt

Hi Walt:

The answer is, yes F.O.s are now being hired into the training department as sim instructors. I'm not actually sure what the pay deal is, I'll have to check on that. The training department needs instructors right now so there is lots of opportunity and I would say that will continue for quite some time into the future.

A lot of guys come into training and then leave after a few years. Line pilot schedules are better in some respects, but worse in others. The line pilots can easily get more days off in a row and prior to vacation than an instructor. Instructors don't do night turns in general and have many more nights at home than a line pilot. From that point it's better when a guy has a young family and wants to be in town more. Until this month line pilots could make just as much, or more than an instructor on the 777 by doing a bit of overtime. Starting this month and probably lasting for quite some time the instructors are working very hard and will be doing a lot of overtime.

TP

Just wondering if there are any changes to the EK interview for year 2011, seems like this thread hasn't had much movements over 4 years

TP,

Does EK count bunk time toward the max 900 per yr. flight time?

Hi,

Not many changes. Basically the same stuff but shifted around the three day process.


Nope.