Originally Posted by
level_change
I dont know if you are a CPT or FO, but consider this. You will spend an average of 120 - 140 h on the airplane during most months, inlcuding inflight rest and some deadheadings. Divide your expected salary including housing allowance through this number and you will see that the blockhour rate of your favorite lunchbox carrying job will start to look pretty good. The conditions are really just as **** as here, but you will be used harder. The only financial benefit of being in the middle east is that you are legally earning it tax free and getting some end of service if you manage to make it out in good terms.
Just fly to Doha or Dubai in your 4 days off after a week of earlies and see how much you enjoy it, because you will experience your new base mostly tired and fatigued.
Pilots are just running away in circles from the real problem, we need to change our terms here and then will it improve everywhere else too.
I know what you mean but my intention is to understand the
differences between the experience in Doha/Qatar and the experience in Dubai/Emirates. Let's imagine that I'm obligated to choose one between the two. How much worse/better would either be? Are they completely different experiences? Is the company's attention to your private life in Qatar as bad as it sounds? Is Doha a place where you would feel more the fact that it's a Muslim country with Muslim rules (I never felt that in Dubai and it was very easy to respect rules and to stay out of trouble without having to dramatically change the way I live my life). Those are the things I want to know. Not so much how tired I will be. I already get tired in my current airline where 90h (paid flight time) means 150h (duty). So basically 60h in uniform are unpaid... and I have to pay for my own uniform, pay and arrange for my own medical and book and pay for my own hotel when I have sim or a duty out of base. I've serioulsy had enough of this and I want to have a more "airline" lifestyle, even if it means to fly around the time zones for 140h. It's not like Lufthansa is an option...