Quite a popular thread! I closed Part 2 because it has over 150 posts at this point.

Pick up the discussion here on "Part 3"...

 

Hey mate, good little write up on you in Flightglobal last month. Well done.

 

Thank you, Koru! Can't beat free publicity for APC

 

Now I have been placed on the shortlist. I have been called in to Dubai. Now What?

 

Now you come interview.

Check out the other threads for info on the interview process.


TP

 

This is my first post -I've been following both this forum and pprune for about 3 months. I'm researching DEC jobs. I've become curious about Emirates-all the info on the website looks very attractive (but so do used car advertisements. HR did a helluva job).

If I were to be hired as a DEC at Emirates, I would be earning less, (and likely flying a little more) but with the first $83000 or so salary exempt from the IRS, with the additional benefits (free/cheap medical, housing, utilites, education, etc.) it appears my cash flow would exceed my take home pay by an appreciable amount.

In short, it looks good on paper, therefore, warrants further investigation.

My experience and quals exceed the DEC requirements EK lists on their web site. I'm 52, with a major US carrier, an am getting increasingly concerned about losing my pension. By leaving, I can protect my accumulated pension benefits. If I stay, with the pending pension law changes, and the current trend to manage airlines through bankruptcy court, I risk losing much of it with no chance of ever making it up, even with extra 5 years the FAA just gave me.

--- so I'll be submitting my application with EK and some others shortly to see what turns up.

I read everything I see here and on pprune with a grain of salt - but things are getting even more rancorous than usual over at pprune (pilots are pilots the world over, I guess) in regards to the the FTL issue.

I understand that without a union, and overseas in the ex-pat world, you "pays the man and takes your chances". Sometimes things work out relatively well, sometimes they do not.

I've gone back and read all the EK threads (a lot of good info on both sites once it's passed through the appropriate BS filters) but this one regarding FTL is raising a red flag.

Could someone comment on this, please?

 

It is quite simple really. A few years ago, Emirates employed the dubious practice of not applying time as a crewmember spent in the bunk towards flight time and duty limitations. This was known as factoring. The result was that when in a 4 man crew, only half of your block time counted towards your flight time limitations. This meant that some guys on the A340 were flying up to 140 hours per month. The practice was discontinued when the GCAA found out about it. (It seems that the company used a letter from the GCAA that stated that time in the bunk was not to be logged as there were total time requirements for upgrade)

Last Thursday at the close of business (our Thursday is like your Friday), the company released a notice letting us know that factoring would be coming back. It wasn't their fault though. They had been found non-compliant by the GCAA and were being forced to do this. In the new version, only the augmenting crew will have to "factor" their time.

The reality is that there is absolutely nothing the crews here can do other than refuse to fly the 120 hour rosters that are in our future. Of course, we are so short of crews, this is the only way that the company can crew the flights in the coming months.

 

If Emirates is so short of crews, why are the minimums so high?


A minimum of 4,000 hours total flying time
A minimum of 2,000 hours multi-crew, multi-engined jet aircraft experience
ICAO ATPL
English language fluency (written and verbal comprehension)
Experience commensurate with age
Type rated would be advantageous

 

Thanks, Gillegan -

Much clearer to me now.

It appears, then, in their efforts to conspire with the authorities they're managing to do a pretty fair job of shooting themselves in the foot.

I'm sure that's very small satisfaction to you folks who have to fly high time.

They're currently pushing for 1/2 to one for bunk time and deadhead time as a contractural concession over here. They've had some success at several carriers - ones that went BK, and LCC startups. Fortunately, the unions are managing to slow this trend down -- but the writing is on the wall.

So - the last time they attempted this - did they actually build your monthly schedules 120 hours, or did they mainly abuse the pilots on reserve?

From what I've been able to gather from the various threads, the Airbus side of the house at EK has been taking the brunt of the abuse - is this spreading fleet wide?

 

Thanks, Gillegan -

Much clearer to me now.

It appears, then, in their efforts to conspire with the authorities they're managing to do a pretty fair job of shooting themselves in the foot.

I'm sure that's very small satisfaction to you folks who have to fly high time.

They're currently pushing for 1/2 to one for bunk time and deadhead time as contractural concessions over here. They've had some success at several carriers - ones that went BK, and LCC startups. Fortunately, the unions are managing to slow this trend down -- but the writing is on the wall.

So - the last time they attempted this - did they actually build your monthly schedules 140 hours, or did they mainly abuse the pilots on reserve?

From what I've been able to gather from the various threads, the Airbus side of the house at EK has been taking the brunt of the abuse - is this spreading fleet wide?