Canuck and Saly. You mentioned a "bunch" of Americans had just been hired. Is there any reason for this? Is it any more than a year ago, for example? Is it because of EK's accelerated airplane deliveries if that is the case?
On getting along, were the questions implied by the posters meaning to ask how they got along in the cockpit, the cabin crew, the passengers, or the local citizens?
I was in Abu Dhabi this week for 4 days and did the trip to Dubai and was pleasantly surprised.
I think many in the world believed that the middle east in the DXB area was like some town in the outback of Australia with dirt streets, some old derelict hourses, and lynchings by the locals complete with animal slayings daily. Now there are some small towns that I drove through that might have looked a little like this,but I saw lots of expensive buildings, McDonald's every five miles, marinas with nice boats, and shopping centers in the city.
BTW, what is the variety of the pilot group? Canadians? Brits? Aussies? Any other big groups?
Also in the EK web site it talked about a "little technical oral" Exactly what does that mean? Does that mean a Flight Operations person ask you to describe the difference between a VASI and CAT2 landing or does that mean diagram the electrical system (of an airplane you have not flown in a few years) in color in 60 seconds? Is this oral flexible or is someone reading from a script so all people get the same questions?