TonyWilliams

Exactly !!!

Give the girlfriend passes to meet up with you all over the world on overnights, and you live in the apartment building with 3000 cabin crew girls from all over the world, age 18-30, certified no fatties.

Varmint

Here are just a few observations on my part that may or may not help you make a decision on interviewing/accepting an offer:

1. If you have lived overseas before you know the drill. Things will be very different from what you are used to in regards to grocery shopping and procedures for getting things done. Do your research on the web before going to complete tasks so you have all the necessary information with you or you will be sent home only to repeat the whole waiting process again. Always carry copies of your passport, visa, and multiple passport photos as they are needed for things that you would never expect them to be needed for.

2. Life is good, the communities are close knit and the housing is very nice. The 30,000DHS given for a furnishing allowance does not even come close to being enough to furnish a villa (maybe an apartment) because you have to buy the stove, dishwasher, fridge, washer and dryer etc as well as furniture for your place if you chose the unfurnished option. If you chose the furnished option you will get very ugly 70's era furniture (new, but think austin powers styling) and very small appliances that don't fit the enclosures they are made for. For example the company fridge given is a corporate fridge that even has a keyed lock on it.

3. The winters are beautiful, the summers are brutal...think bullhead city AZ temps with humidity.

4. You are in their country and they don't take the crap that Americans take from foreigners. You have to be respectful and accept that you are someone who is there to work for them and sometimes suck it up when you feel like telling someone off.

5. Booze is available but is more expensive. With that said though, I have never had any problems finding a place to drink and have a good time here even if it costs slightly more. Groceries are slightly more expensive if you shop at the local grocery stores and alot more expensive if you shop at the expat rigged stores (like spinneys).

6. The BIG one for me and the only thing that has tainted my opinion of Emirates. The indoc and the initial impression of the company is great, and aside from 1 or 2 aspects, its is great but these two aspects are huge to a pilot. For Example:

The training department here wants to reinvent and nit pick every aspect of you flying an airplane. You can read the manuals, do what is said in the manuals and you will still be wrong no matter what you do. Everyone seems to have their own techniques that they expect to see and when you don't know them, it affects your grades on the session even though it is just technique. Think of it like boot camp...they will beat you down on every training event....nothing is ever good or perfect and there is always something bad to say about virtually everything you do. Not only does this go for your initial training but it goes for your subsequent checks including your upgrade training. This was an unknown for me when I came here and I have sometimes regretted making the move because of it. As a pilot, our certification is very important and maintaining a clean record. Our fellow training pilots here seem to have no qualms in failing you or making comments on your training forms that could be detrimental to your future without giving you a chance to correct them first prior to permanently making record of them.

Additionally, every aspect of the airplane you are flying is monitored and it will tell on you. If you screw up, your pretty much gone or getting called in for, as they put it, "tea and biscuits" with the Cheif Pilot. It has nothing to do with being non-union it has everything to do with the management structure not recognizing that humans make errors and the best way to mitigate them is to include the people involved, re-train, and try to prevent the events from happening again through analysis of what happened. Instead, they knee jerk react and fire.

I know this last one seems big, and it is. However, I am enjoying my time here and enjoy the normal people at this company. I have tried to keep everything real and not include emotional statements to help you make a more informed decision. Hope they help.

Molon Labe

Varmit, that is a very very good concise post.

Elvis90

Human rights are not a given in a Muslim nation:

The dark side of Dubai - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

Jughead

That's an interesting, sobering article. I hope anyone wanting to work over there reads it and gives some serious thought before looking for the elusive "better job" elsewhere.

Elvis90

Being former military and deployed to the middle east multiple times, I've learned to really appreciate the freedoms we have in the US that are often taken for granted. That includes the fact that you can have collective bargaining, a union, to help iron out a reasonable contract with work rules written down.

According to that article, Dubai encourages a form of modern day economic slavery, with 300,000 men living south of town, with passports taken away, earning less then what it takes to leave the country. If you complain, you're imprisoned. These are the men building all those impressive towers.

The Local indigenous populace doesn't care because of the economic hardships their ancestors experienced living like nomads in the desert. Everything for them is free in their version of the Nanny State.

Typhoonpilot

I'm sure those strawberries you eat in the USA are picked by minimum wage earners who live in luxurious accommodation while enjoying the fruits of American society

......or maybe they are picked by illegal aliens who paid huge sums of money to mules to get them across the border and now toil in the fields like modern day slaves.

Exploitation occurs in every country in the world. Is it worse in the UAE?, maybe, but on average those workers in the UAE are earning three to four times what they could in their home country.

The world isn't fair.

.....just sayin.



TP

Elvis90

Have you been working at EK for some time? Maybe you can clear up possible misconceptions.

I'm not revealing this out of charity for all those workers, although I find it reprehensible. I'm pointing this out to individual pilots to consider the implications should the company or local government turn against them for whatever reason.

Typhoonpilot

If you do an advanced search for Emirates as a thread title and go the first thread I started in 2005 as well as the continuation thread ( Part II ) you'll see we've done all this information before. There were some really good ones a few years ago that went round and round with the positives and negatives of joining EK and living in Dubai. I used to be quite the champion for EK because back in 2003-2006 it was a great opportunity for American pilots facing furlough, lost pensions, massive pay cuts, stagnation, etc. Nowadays I'm not so much the champion for EK. Conditions have changed for the worse and some injustices have come down on a few pilots ( essentially fired or treated poorly for making mistakes ). Overall EK has been very good for my career and I've enjoyed my time in Dubai. That's me, it doesn't work for everybody. Anyone contemplating coming to EK must make the choice based on their personal circumstances. It will work for some, but not all.

Gillegan, care to weigh in?



TP

Elvis90

Thanks for the feedback...I'll take a look at those older threads.