Marooned, you are absolutely correct. That is precicely what I was netting back in the UK.
Here however, I am netting about 3400quid (using an average exchange rate before any overtime which can net me up to another 1000 quid). If I chose to take the housing allowance I would bring in about another 1500 quid a month taking it up to about 5 grand a month (before provident fund deduction).
So making direct comparisons, here I could possibly have roughly 5 grand a month (B4 overtime) to live on as an F/O out of which mortgage and other life deductions would have to come, or 3 grand a month with exactly the same deductions in the UK.
Now, I'm no mathmetician but I recon I'm about 2k per month better off here than I was in the UK???
Before someone spouts off about Dubai being the most expensive city in the known Universe, the fact is the 'Big Mac' scale (an interantionally recognised econimoc tool) using a 'basket' of 200 products and services (including the cost of Big Mac's) puts London as being the 4th most epensive city in the world with Dubai coming in close behind as the 72nd most expensive... FACT not emotion!!!
All I know is, I was on the 'bread line' in the UK on a salary 3 times the national average and a disposable income of 2 pounds 64p at the end of the month. But in Dubai I'm not, I'm sorry to be the barer of bad news to the doom merchants, but I am better off. (If you choose to keep a house with mortgage in the UK, thats your descision - although I'd find it hard to believe you guy's don't receive rental income from that).
I have a great lifestyle here socially (although not enough days off), with golf (not as often as I'd like), sailing, dune bashing etc, and I still have change enough to take the family out a couple of times a week for a meal! Something I could only dream of doing in the UK, and yes I have been here for more than a couple of years now, so do feel at least partially knowlegable about the subject matter.
The airline though, now thats a different matter!
Nuff said.