I suppose I will respond to #15's post at a later time. Here's one thing in regard to your post though, slowto280. You linked to a press release about where Midex (doing nearly 9 BILLION EUROS a year, no less) is having their planes worked on. Here is one part of that release:
"About MIDEX
Midex Airlines currently operates daily cargo services to eight cities from its hub at Al Ain International Airport: Dhaka, Chennai, Mumbai, Karachi, Colombo, Beirut, Paris and Istanbul. It also operates charter flights to Iraq and Afghanistan. The airline operates a fleet of six A300B4-203Fs and one B747-200F. MIDEX Airlines is part of the MIDEX INTERNATIONAL Group which, in 2008 generated turnover of €8.9 billion (about AED 50 billion)."
May I ask please, how much of that press release is true? We don't operate daily cargo services to those airports from Al Ain. We go hardly anywhere at all, except for flying to Iraq (for no extra pay because apparently it isn't a "war zone" any more) and Afghanistan (for reduced extra pay). Most pilots sit around for a week at a time or more before they are called for a flight. Should we believe the other parts of the press release?
Midex International (whoever they are) does nearly 9 billion Euros a year in "turnover"? That is about 13 billion US dollars a year. Surely a company of that size would have some sort of recognizable, professional web site? I have traveled all over the world and have regularly seen FedEx and UPS trucks, even in some of the most remote places. Each of those companies does about $30-45 billion a year in revenue. Midex is doing about 1/3 to 1/2 half of that, according to the press release. I've never seen one Midex truck, or one Midex office, or one Midex anything except for a few planes on the ramp in Al Ain. The few recent Midex propaganda pieces I have found refer to freight carried for different carriers, some of which, like Emery Worldwide, are out of business and have not been in business (at least by that name) since 2001.
Sure am glad they changed the schedule to 10/3 though, for "better crew utilization." Among other things, they're too dumb to see that they have us at the complex roughly 25% more during the year than they did before, and still they send emails to crew members saying that they are using too much electricity. Duh. What will be next, charging for a portion of it? Probably.
Last edited by I Love Midex; 19th Oct 2009 at 16:19.