You guys haven't been to enough meetings.
The general format goes something like this.
One month warning to said conflict
Invitation for all and sundry to put forward items for agenda.
Meeting day arrives with throngs of uninformed masses arriving to try and unravel some of the mysteries surrounding their overdraft and chronic fatigue.
Management convenes said meeting, making it clear that they only have limited time to use the facilities and have to be gone by 3pm. (Clearly the owner needs to use the facility for something far more important!). The meeting then commences 30 min late with introduction from SVPFO who tells us how good things are and how lucky we are to be here and how expensive life is in England. Fuel is 50 quid a litre or similar. He then introduces several other flunkies who proceed to mesmerise us with tales of shiny aircraft, massive upgrade numbers, reems of applications from seriously experienced pilots wanting to work for our coveted airline.
They then move on to tell us how EK are industry leaders in fatigue management, how the changes to our productivity will be at worst cost neutral. They throw in the odd little jibe about how we shouldn't be paid if we aren't acutally sitting in a cockpit.
We then get a bit of burst on how we are about to revolutionise cabin crew recruiting, training and morale. (Bigger stick)
This is punctuated by a couple of drinks breaks, some enlightening information about the CRS system, which basicallly says that for the want of a few hundred thousand dirhams and another 100 pilots it might actually work, but in the meantime could we just ask for your support until we get it sorted out.
As we now approach 3 o'clock, SVPFO wanders back in from somewhere ready to wrap up the meeting, content that everyone is happy and all issues have been addressed.
Questions did I here you say. ****, no time for that. Too busy telling us how lucky we are.
That leaves us all to go home and check the overdraft again, grab a quick drink before getting a couple of hours kip to head off to some sh*thole, in the middle of the night, hoping that as long as you get a quick turnaround you might be back in time to see the kids before they go to school.
Seems a whole lot easier to go to finnegans.