Originally Posted by
Spongeboeing
How can you ask that?? That's like aviation career basics.
Because not all of us were lucky to get a job at a national carrier in our 20s. We're mercenaries. We go where the good work is hoping to make as much money as possible in a way that is compatible with our off-work life goals and enjoy while we're at it. You know well enough that most European pilots would change a high income career in Asia and the Middle East for a lower income career in a national carrier like Lufthansa, KLM or Iberia. Who here is flying for Lufthansa I ask? Most of us here are in Easyjet, Wizzair, Ryanair, DHL, Norwegian, etc. Tell a Wizzair pilot that xxx company is bad because they fly a lot. See what happens.
somewhere mentioned on 380 min 12/14 days off. Well I have seen enough month where that is absolutely not true. I had a good amount of month with 10 and less still doing 90hr.
The question is what did you need to give up going to EK:
from 2016 to 2019 and later into COVID restrictions pilots (especially commanders) did not get there full yearly vacation.
therefore they could often only meet the family once a year if at all
1) your family back home (parents siblings etc)
2) friends
3) think of the kids who left their friends back home because daddy wished for EK
usually the Pilar's of your sozial life
for what:
to sit in the dessert, within a super artificial environment, where people giving up their identity, to people who even not having one, for a company which does not respect the individual a single second.
life in DXB sounds interesting - but only for a tiny tiny bit compared to the life span being there. If you are for more than some beach clubs, cars, boats and being 10000 times in the desert having barbecue. Other than that DXB is not any thing more than boring.
There is not only one case where him the pilot convinced her(wife) and them(kids) to follow his dream and for the fun of making their live nice and cosy, pilled a good amount of depth with the bank just to keep them happy.
look around you in MS or MH nearly every second wife wants either to be a hairdresser or cosmetic artist, personal trainer, not because they can’t do anything else or they are not qualified. They just having a super hard time to find something what aligns with their education or qualification for a fair and nice salary.
Beside the ****** up cost of living (speaking of times pre Covid and pre Ukrainian War)
point is simple, EK was a cool job back when the individual was able to spread the vacation across the year, top it up with some of days. Back than it was possible to see it as just a job where you go to work and leave for short Periode to recharge the batteries from the dessert idiocy.since some local has deceived that your personal well being has to focused on spending your time in Dxb, people forgetting that your are caged.
I can still remember the voices everywhere when AAR disabled the possibility to add 5 days to a week of VAC. People learned to live with it, but nobody was happy. And till today the Stockholm Syndrom is setting in.
And today people think living in a compound far of the most in the middle of the dessert with a community pool (which is half year round not working) is the golden perfect live.
most people I know had been redundant are missing the long range flying within a network like the of EK - none of them is missing EK as a company and all are committed that their new lifestyle in regards to the environment is a thousand time better than in ******* DXB.
comparing the big airlines in Europe with all the LCC is by far more than difficult.
What has to be said, is that exactly those fellows who never made it into one of the big airlines are to be blamed that Ryan Air, Wizz & co have been successful with their employment models, as all those pilots started to sell their sole to get in and accepted every BS contract just to say „I am a pilot „.
I know quite a few people who turned down a list of offers from LCC and ACMIs just because of the contract terms versus money you earn.
If 80% of pilots would think the same way, including those at the ME3 than things would be fairly different even in the dessert.
but Pilots as a group are the easiest to trick and play as their will be always one being happy to be in the golden cage to realize years later what he had done to his personal and mental health giving up so much for the by far most disrespectful company in industry. And now you will say Asia isn’t any better - true but at least the paid triple and wasn’t any easy to get in.