Stating numbers is meaningless unless it is measured relative to costs.
If I were earning a Million Dirhams a month but it cost me a million to scrape by then the salary would be rather useless. After all if you cannot put something away for when you are unable to work, then the whole exercise is somewhat pointless - unless you plan for your kids or the state to support you.
For accurate assessments, salaries must be measured against costs. Salary increases must be measured against accurate inflation.
On this scale Emirates is in a downward spiral. They are not the only airline - I know.
Some examples of earning attrition:
Three years ago the EK housing allowance was 126K a year. You could rent a decent 4 bed villa for about 130K. Today the EK allowance is 142K a year and the same villa will cost a min of 240K a year. So the allowance has gone from 97% of the cost to 59% of the cost.
So much for housing. Lets take something basic. Water:
A year ago 5 gal of drinking water cost 6 Dhs - Today I was informed it was 8 Dhs. This apparently due to the increased cost of labour and diesel. That's a 33% increase on a basic and essential commodity.
This will happen progressively with other goods and services. With oil at $122 a barrel and the Dirham pegged no-one has to be a genius to see that even a salary increase this year of 20% will be negated by the end of the year. Oil has climbed over 20% since the beginning of the year. This cost WILL be passed on.
This only considers the cost of transport let alone the increase in price in itself - for all commodities.
This will be an extremely tough year in the UAE. Sure there are worse jobs and places but anyone coming here should do more than the maths for today. They should examine the trend and extrapolate it for the coming year.