Emirates
 

Ok, so a friend of mine was surprized when Air Emirates took him up on an interview. I know that the U.A.E. is friendly to westerners, but he's American and Emirates does plenty of flying to Iran, Pakistan, etc. There is a fullly furnished villa in the mix an a cushy lifestyle in Dubai, not to mention the latest and greatest airplanes from Airbus and Boeing. However, what do you all make of an American taking the job with the world stage as it is right now? What is Dubai like? Anyone doing it? Is it all it seems to be?

Dubai is very friendly, very hot and very Western in it's attitude. I would say almost 40% of the people there are ex-pats from either Europe or SW Asia. It has a great business climate, very clean and very wealthy. Good duty-free shopping, great malls.

Emirates is a growing airline, but does not offer western-style benefits or pay. They do fly new A330s/340s, B777s and has A380s on order, but I have heard some Americans and Brits don't like it there. I don't think it will ever be a problem flying for Emirates going into Pakistan, Iran or elsewhere; it is a highly regarded company in the Middle East, and the crews are treated very well.

Is it difficult for those who cannot speak arabic? How is the lifestyle? This website lists their union as "illegal in U.A.E."!!! Lol, does that hamper advancement?

Visit this thread, a lot of good info if you're interested in Emirates:
http://forums.airlinepilotcentral.co...light=emirates

Golden Child:

There are about 15-20 of us Americans here at Emirates. We're furloughed USAir, United, and AA mostly. A couple of USAir DEC's (Direct Entry Captains).

The best place to get real time info on our situation here is on the PPrune message board, Middle East Forum.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/forumdi...c&daysprune=45

It's hard to sum it all up in a sentence but if you have a job, don't come here.

If anyone is really considering it, read PPrune to get a feel for the flavor, there's ranting, but I have not read anything on there that wasn't true.

To address your questions, yes there's a Villa, but you'll have to furnish it, Dubai is not a cushy lifestyle, there's traffic gridlock most of the day, everywhere. The airline will work you, there's no union/work rules/recourse, and the message from the company is basically: if you don't like it leave. Think 100hours a month, back of the clock, no credit pay for anything, only paid on scheduled block. If you have vacation in a month, you'll still fly a full months schedule in the remaining days of the month, again no credit/work rules. If you come as an FO, long time to upgrade, upgrade policy always changes so they can justify hiring more DEC's which are a cheaper solution. Anyway....

-Max

Max has it dead on... reading Pprune.com's Middle East section is a must!! I've been flying and living in the Middle East for awhile... Avoid any carrier here unless you have no other options. If you want some overseas long haul experience... Go to Asia.. This place is horrible. On top of that.. some of the expats don't exactly welcome the yanks.. not all are bad.. but some resent our presence here.

EK managements are bunch of liers!!!:mad:

I do work for EK... I can't wait to get the hell out of here.

TP may give a fair assessments of EK, but in reality, it's rotten inside.