Originally Posted by whossorrynow
goforit
For a small group the US contigent at Emirates have a very loud voice. Most of them have been here less than three years and most have come from your decimated industry. Another poster on another thread mentioned 'Stockholm Syndrome'. You will know what this means.
There is another regular poster from the same geographical area and the same previous employer who has been in Emirates rather longer.
In the main his comments on this forum are at odds with those of his colleagues.
Perhaps he would take the opportunity to comment.
I assume that you are referring to me. Since I have been here 10 years, I am probably not qualified to comment too much on how bad things have gotten back home. What I am qualified to comment on is why guys who have been here a while are so angry. In the time that I have been here, I have continuously had my terms and conditions changed - almost always for the worse. To be fair, they are usually not contractual items because the contract is conspicuous for what it doesn't contain. It's gotten so that whenever I get a communication from the company, my first thought is, "what have they done now?". I think that this has a cumulative effect and many of the new guys haven't quite reached their threshold of indignation. I think that it has gotten so bad in the states that for a lot of pilots, they are relieved to land on their feet.
I ran into a United B777 crew in SIN recently and had a few beers with them. The captain had been entertaining applying here. After comparing rosters and paychecks (after an approximately 45% paycut) he was still better off than me. I was flying 30% more block hours for less pay. I could go on and on but we've all heard it before, ad nauseam. Hey, if a guys happy here, neither I nor anyone else has any right to tell him otherwise. What annoys me is that some of the cheerleaders fail to take into account the accumulated experiences of many long serving and hard working pilots and instead rely ONLY on their limited (and in some cases unusually fortunate) situations when recounting their experience. For some guys, when you look at their situations, what's not to like? Unfortunately, not all of us have other sources of income, a generous nest egg or a safety net in something to return to. If I had a few years at $20,000 a month, maybe I would have saved enough so that I wouldn't be so worried about my retirement.
When I was deciding whether to come here, I made a spreadsheet based on starting pay, the 4% annual increment that we received, an upgrade in 5 years and an annual rate of return on the provident fund of 7 1/2%. Well, my experience has fallen well short of my projections - and not because the company has experienced any unprofitable years or untold difficulty.