One has to understand that EK started around 1985 and has grown very fast since.
Many of the older pilots in EK are there because their own Airlines went bust or they lived in countries that were politically very unstable or simply because they could not find a job anywhere else. There were very few pilots that came out of mayor companies.
The country itself is very young and the local CAA has only recently emerged out of virtually nothing and is going trough a very steep learning curve.
In the beginning EK OPS was run by a couple of Paki’s and Brits and was some kind of gentleman’s flying club. A lot of procedures were reinvented and some obvious legal requirements twisted and misinterpreted because of lack of knowledge.
Hence the Arabs almost blindly believed what was said and they have made some very bad choices in the past, mistakes they have acknowledged and dealt with in their own way of dealing with things.
Friends of friends became instructors and with a bit of money under the table you could get into EK quit easily in the early days.
Only in 1995 did EK start to get organized under Mr. G*** J**** and he introduced the first FOM that was just a compilation of existing piles of notes and practices.
Most of these documents were blindly approved by the understaffed CAA; in fact EK functioned as if they were the CAA themselves.
Recently EK was audited by ICAO and because of this the government has put great effort into getting up to speed.
Today EK is slowly growing into maturity. Most pilots are pretty relaxed, enjoy the standard of living and do not care about how operations are run at all. EK has never invested a lot of money into operations, they like to get it for free hence have underinvested.
SOP’s are what they are, the way the chief wants you to fly the plane, nothing wrong with that at all.
Most illegal practices of the past will have probably disappeared by now, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.
If you go there with a lot of experience you will want to keep your head very low. If you do have some questions related to the operations, you may want to elect to be very careful you do not push it too far. Let them ask the questions and you will see they will not puch that far.
You may see certain things that they do not see, but will find many colleagues that agree with you so leave it just at that.
Just be nice to everybody and they will like you in other words "Do not rock the boat" the Joburg incident has taken care of that by itself.
Basically a pilot is what he has been taught in the past by his previous airlines.
If you find yourself above the EK standard then that’s nice for you but be careful, even with the best of intentions you may step on some toes without realizing it.
Standards vary throughout the world; at EK they do not accept/see it that way but argue you have a big chip on your shoulder while you are only stating what other Airlines/ CAA’s have educated you.