I hope you have a plan for life after Emirates, hummingbear. It doesn't sound like it is any better gig than the regional left seat you currently occupy. Of course this is based on the assumption you don't want to live in Dubai, given a choice. If Dubai is your goal, then scratch the above. Great opportunity then.

I would like to explain the vacation policy more, but I can't. The fact is the company doesn't follow the policy so I can't really tell you how it works. I know this much. I bid for 3 vacation periods. I got only one in May. I have then been randomly assigned vacation in 2011, back to back almost. For a total of 31 days out of my supposed 42. I used all my vacation last year, but you can apparently roll a small amount over. If you have a significant rolled over balance, the company can assign leave as per the staff manual.... But they are assigning leave anyway, even though most don't have rolled over days.. clear as mud???

All schooling is limited in my opinion. There is a constant shortage of places in most all schools. Choice is not something you are likely to get. Be happy if your kids even get into one school.

TimSmith makes a great point. Whats next?? In my opinion, you either stick it out here until you have a 1000+ PIC then look for contract DEC jobs and commit yourself to a career of being an expat or long distance commuter, or you do 3 years and pay off the bond then go back to the old life after you've experienced this one. But keep in mind its hard to leave here. 3 months notice and endless paperwork. Try showing up for the interview and class date at your next employer when you are 8000 miles away and can't start for 3 months... its not easy trust me.

uhhh... thanks for the heartfelt concern, i guess. haven't even come up with a plan for or against emirates, much less after- just asking questions to make sure i have all the info. as for whether it's better than my current situation or not, i'm sure you won't mind if i reserve that judgement for myself. i'm not sure why some here seem to be upset at the mere idea that some faceless pilot might even be considering this job, but for those who have provided real answers to my questions, a big thank you. since i don't have any personal contacts at ek, i'm learning a lot from those who are willing to take the time here.

Here's to clarify it a little more. You have 42 days of leave a year. You bid for your leave in two steps: First you bid for Peak leave (Summer and Christmas). You bid for any amount of periods. I typically bid for three slots of up to three weeks.

You will then get a peak leave period assigned. This might or might not coincide with your actual bid. Let's say you got lucky and got two weeks of leave in July (If you did not get peak leave, you're supposed to get higher priority for peak leave the next year).

You will now have 28 days of leave left (42-14). You can now bid off-peak leave. You will then get one or two more leave periods assigned. Let's say the system assigns you two weeks leave in November. You have now 14 days of leave left. The 14 remaining days will be carried over in the next year. Or they will assign you leave days, like 2 x 2 days in September or something like that. Of course that is instead of OFF days and not in addition.

Now, remember that

- you cannot change peak leave, you can only cancel
- you can apply for a non-peak leave change, that may or may not be granted, depending on some black magic in leave planning...
- if you get peak leave outside your kids school holidays, well tough luck. Try again next year, because the leave is basically wasted...

By law the company is required to give you 30 days of vacation. That's it. Whether that’s at a time that's actually convenient to you, or in one or 5 blocks is not of their concern.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that you only get one Annual Leave Ticket per year, so it might be difficult to actually get to/from your vacation spot if you've used up your ALT.

Now, that said. I had good experiences with Leave Planning in the past trying to change leave or swap leave with some other pilot. Although that has gotten increasingly difficult as we try to make do with less and less pilots for more and more flying.

Hope this helps?

...helps a ton. very informative, thanks.

so here's a hypothetical about vacation time. say you got two weeks off in the summer, but the wife & kids wanted to go home for a month. could you split the dates on the confirmed seats such that you and the family traveled separately, or do all travelers' schedules need to fall within your alloted time off?

Every person has their own ticket, so they could travel by themselves. But there are age limits to UM's on ALT. I think it's 12 years, Again, I don't have kids, so not sure on the kid's stuff...

Three American Schools, all have their own website:

Dubai American Academy
American School of Dubai
Universal American School


DAA is by the Mall of the Emirates
UAS is by Festival City
ASD is moving out past DAA in the desert


There are other schools that would be acceptable of both the British and International variety. There is a lot of choice but it needs to be researched thoroughly.

It used to be very difficult to get a place and there are probably some schools where that is still the case, but ASD ( which is an excellent school ) has plenty of openings for the coming year since their campus size is increasing substantially. I can only go by my experience here, but I could get a kid into ASD tomorrow with no problem. My son's K1 class has been less than full all year. ASD also happens to be very expensive though so it prices a lot of people out. K1 is okay, but K2 through grade 5 will be way higher than EK's reimbursement plus they have a new seat deposit requirement at the new campus.



Typhoonpilot

thanks, typhoon- i'll be checking all that out. additionally, i'm glad this came up, because the information is not readily available through the website:

so, a 3 year contract with early termination penalties, i imagine? after that, you are an "at will" employee with the option to leave at any time? i have not heard the 3 months for termination of employment. the penalty for giving less notice than 3 months being what? can anyone share some details (or provide a link) including length of the contract and terms for cancellation?

Hello again typhoon.

i called many places in usa and could not find understanding performance book.

i even tried places in canada but no luck. Any ideas?

Could you please find out more about the tech quiz as to whats covered on the new quiz and what books to use.

thanks for your quick replies.


Also, could someone point to me in the right direction in finding weather reports in metric system, eg TAF, Metars, RVR , decoding , as am i not used to metric system.