Cerbus - in the late '90's and possibly into the 2000's, the EK pilot salary scales were set by a comparison with the salary scales of a "basket" of other, what might be called for the purpose, "top tier" carriers. I believe there were five in the basket, and included BA, CX and SQ, if my recall is correct. I don't recall when that comparison exercise was dropped, if indeed it was, or if/when the component airlines of the basket changed, but I do remember the whole exercise gradually became much less transparent to the pilots after GJ retired as GM Flight Ops (or whatever the title was back then).
7B