Comparisons are one thing.
What your salary buys you in Dubai is another subject entirely.
Who cares about whether you are earning double what you are making now in your hometown? The real issue is what buying power do you have living in Dubai? Seeing as you and your families are going to be spending a large portion of your time and money here.
Now if you happen to have anything left over after spending on your expenses in DXB? That's great! Now you can look at what's left over to make any sort of comparison as to what that left over can buy you back home? Be it a mortgage a holiday etc...
Unless one decides that living in DXB as a single person, whilst the family lives abroad. Shares the cheapest accomodation one can find i.e paying for a room in a villa at Mirdiff. Keep expenditures to an absolute minimum and commute whenever and however possible to spend time with the family.
Commuting is very tough in EK. It was a lot easier years ago with an older rostering system called SBS. And simply because there were no restrictions on bidding for days off. I remember on a regular basis getting six days at the end of one month followed by another six or even eight at the beginning of the following month. Plus as a captain on the A310, doing 95 hours a month. Long before the 330/340.
And yes the cost of living was a lot cheaper. So my left over salary back then, bought me a lot back home and abroad.
In conclusion; Unless EK stick their hands deep in their pockets for a substantial pay increases and a massive change of their attitude toward their staff? The flood gates will remain open. They will not be able to retain key staff positions and they are certainly having a tough enough time to convince pilots to join.
They have saved huge sums of money by paying peanuts across their staff network for years. It's about time they put some of that hard earned money back into their own employees, which happens to be their biggest asset. But unless that big change in attitude occurs, we probably wont see anything significant in monetary terms either. Pity, really.
Check 'Six'
