gcpilot

The vacation time they advertise of 6 weeks/ year, what are the restrictions to taking those days? Can one take 2 weeks max at a time, 4 weeks or the 6 weeks at once? What other restrictions do they put on vacation time?

For European guys even 2 weeks at a time may be sufficient due to the proximity and flights from Dubai, but North Americans will find that much harder and less appealing.

Dune

Flight Operations leave allocation policy is to ensure all pilots get 30 days leave in the fiscal year (01 Apr-31 Mar annually). Never mind your contract says 42 days; there is very little/no chance you'll see that as a yearly allocation as per your bid request. I bid yearly for the full allocation (non-peak) but have not had it in the past 4 years.

Once the initial 30-odd days are allocated, you can submit bids for additional leave which will be awarded 2 months before your requested period if available.

Should you end up carrying a balance, they reserve the right to assign leave (min 4 day blocks at their discretion) as they see fit throughout the year should they deem your balance is "excessive". This term is not defined but at their discretion. This is a clever way of burning excess leave off their balance sheet by way of assigning short blocks of leave in lieu of days off in a given month while still operating a full schedule (eg. you could fly an 85 hour month, get 4-5 days off and 4-5 days leave).

UAE Labor Law is specific in that annual leave can only be broken up into a maximum of 2 periods but Emirates (as a government owned company) is not subject to UAE Labor Law and has been given essentially the option to write their own laws. As such, they can pretty much do as they please with your leave balance. Over the past several years this has saved them a fortune.

Bottom line is the leave policy sucks and you'll be very hard pressed to get home more than once/year.

zesj97pm48

Dubai in December and January is ideal weather. The rest of the year it makes Arizona - "It's a dry heat" look like heaven.

Mid year temps at 50c is not unusual. That's about 130f in your language.

And you can bet there's no large accommodation.

Kapitanleutnant

Dripstick…

I may be mistaken but… I believe the monthly bunk time is indeed counted towards the 92 hours BUT…. not counted for the annual 900 hours. Pilots can actually be rostered to fly well over the 900 hour limit due to this… and it's all legal. Go figure!

Correct me if I'm wrong please….

Oh and fwiw… I have somewhere between 91 and 92 hours with single digit number of days off.

K

Varmint

Also, if you come to EK in search of a "quick" upgrade on a nice wide body, you will be disappointed.

Fleet management and the local Chief Pilot are in control of your upgrade. If you call sick too much, show up for a trip late, repeat items in your sim sessions (practicing), or are just not generally liked by the people in charge here, you will not get your upgrade. Some guys have been delayed for more than 1 year now after their peers have started their upgrade.

While you have to start at the bottom in seniority based airlines, there is no discrimination and no cherry picking. When it is your time and you want to upgrade you go for the training and it's up to you to pass. It's not up to some dumb penguin on a power trip.

The Dominican

A dumb penguin on a power trip will determine if you pass regardless of which country in the world you take your training, don't kid yourself

Readback

Fewer in the US Legacy carriers.

Ozpilot414

Any one going to MIA in feb? Around the 17-25th?


Save me Baby Jesus!

Kapitanleutnant

Dom....

As Readback says...
FAAAAR FEWER at the US
Legacies !!!!!

The Dominican

Not in my experience....! There is a system in the US where you are not as vulnerable and you have options to bypass some of these arses with a chip on their shoulder..., yes! But to say that everyone is fair and non-judgmental at the legacies? I wouldn't go that far.