The people you work with in the cockpit and cabin are amazing, a good atmosphere. The office staff is something else, I never managed to get the promised school allowance, they will only pay this to local UAE schools, for me it was never an option to drag the kids out to Dubai.
Dubai has never been for me. You are standing in front of a red light and an Arab rearends you and totals your car. Guess what; the next two days you are spending at the police station trying to sort things out. Unavailable for duty and penalized in your salary and in the end it is all your fault because if you would not have been in the country you could not have been hit. You get a hefty police fine and your insurance rates just quadrupled.
Traffic is horrendous, locals in White Nissan Patrols are a real danger and don’t get into an argument, they threat you right away you will be deported, lovely.
At random you get traffic fines for places you have not even been like Abu Dhabi or at the time of the violation you were on an overnight; no use fighting this.
Yes FO’s do upgrade but not easy or guaranteed, the stories they told me, not easy. You need to have good marks for your simulator sessions. Doable. If you are unlucky your grading session is with a close to retirement American and he just fails everyone, tough luck.
Trainers are ok, mostly Brazilians who take care of each other of course but in general good people.
Bidding doesn’t work, maybe for FO”s, not if you are a 3 year captain, The first 10 years you will never be off during summer or Christmas an new years.You get randomly assigned leave in march or May, never when my kids had vacation. And trip bids, well if you are top bid and bid on 15 trips you might get one, the rest just at random.
Exception are the Indians, amazing how they can get 10 days off duty.... The Indian ground ops manager has been fired at Qatar and Ethiad for taking bribes in return for schedules to your liking, it's a rumour website right and it's the Middle East
Lot’s of Russian/ Moscow flights. Since I am European this is a nightmare, Russians interrogate you asking why FD hires Ukrainian pilots and they confiscate your smartphone and laptop and look at your visited websites and picture, log into you Facebook account, incredible. The company does nothing. When the rebels were 80 kilometers away and Emirates canceled the Moscow flights, FD kept going and sent the usual copy and paste manual from security, after three day s "we are monitoring the situation". Same memo for Tel Aviv, Kabul, Beirut and the other lovely destinations you fly to, no back up here.
There are nice destinations as well.
The medical is another thing, medicine is big business in Dubai, the slightest thing wrong and you end up in the specialist circuit. The insurance is not so great and doesn’t cover everything
I heard many stories of guys whos BMI ws too high and had to lose 10% of their body weight within 3 months and don’t ever tell you snore, they force you into an sleep apnea program , silly expensive. And blood pressure and blood checks are high on the list.
Anyways?At a sudden moment I didn’t see my kidsfor four months and I resigned, Dubai is just not for everybody, there are many good jobs out there for captains which pay much better and are rotational, sometimes you just have to be home.
Been home for a couple of months now, got a 20/10 job for a better package and my blood pressure is much lower. Again great colleagues and for FO’s there is potential but it is lifestyle
Last edited by Captain Kaboom; 13th September 2024 at 17:11.