A word to the wise (ex-EK driver's experience)
I have recently escaped the evil empire and would like to share a few thoughts. Many things have been written about EK over the past years for the most part true, but i would like to add a few more insights.
After I tendered my resignation I was asked to attend for an EXIT interview. The under lying question was why are you leaving and what can we do to change your mind?
Simply put my reply was that prior to signing up I was presented a glossy corporate image of EK where I would live in a fabulous villa supplied by the company who would pay “all reasonable utilities” and all I had to do was jump into my chauffer driven Audi & fly approx 75 hours a month staying in 5 star hotels whilst my wife and children attended private school 95% paid for by the company and if I worked over time (more that 78) I would receive a healthy overtime payment known as productivity pay. Then on my return I would enjoy ample time off to enjoy liberal cosmopolitan Dubai and socialize with my friends. The incremental pay scale table along with the historical regular pay increases and amazing company profit share where brilliant, my promised & future tax free salary would allow us to live the good life with loads of toys and the ability to save a lot of money and if I stayed 5 years I would receive 75% of the company’s provident fund contributions representing 12% of my growing salary or 100% if I stayed 7 years. We could travel home and see the world regularly using the firm and standby tickets available to all staff not using holidays which were 42 days a years but using days off that we could bid for using the amazing EK bid system even stringing days together over 2 months so we could have 2 weeks off but still work our 75 hours. But the real carrot was the ability to make the left seat in 3 years.
The reality was very different, I had decided to leave because the accommodation was a scandal, what we were shown and what we eventually received were as different as a Boeing NG and an Antonov . The quality of the build was shoddy, it leaked whenever it rained and I guess the plumber did the tiling and the carpenter did the plumbing. I now had to pay a large portion of the exorbitant DEWA electricity and water bills for the villa that requires constant AC to keep at a reasonable temperature due to its poor insulation and a water requirement needed to keep the garden green to give my family somewhere same to play and relax escaping the world’s biggest construction site that is Dubai and having to pay extra fees because the company had not been paying its bills. When I returned from trips having driven home in the tattered battered Audi driven by a poor contract driver who was working 15 hours straight and driving the world’s most dangerous roads at 140km, I was continuously fatigued and trying to figure out what time zone I was in.
Working over 90 hours a month with the overtime pay essentially abolished by moving the threshold to beyond the legal annual average. The pay increases stopped and the published pay scale increment was abolished and the bonus none existent even thought the company continuously made money, the greed was becoming obvious, extreme and obscene. The cost of living had skyrocketed in Dubai and we were finding it difficult to make ends meet. We were not alone most of my neighbours were expressing the same worries, savings and toys were out of the question. Schools fees were rising an average of 12% per year on already crazy prices with company contribution frozen, so within 3 years my contribution of 5% was rising to over 25% and would represent 2 months of my stalled salary. The bid system was failing with top bids frequently not achieving the requested time off or pairings. Stringing days together proved difficult often impossible so trips had to wait until annual leave which was bid for and often achieved unworkable dates not coinciding with school holidays and only the 30 legal minimum days being permitted, the balance being allocated as random days off at the company’s will. Then to top it all the carrot of command had rotted and become turnip somewhere out in the distance out of reach getting further away.
So what can we do to convince you to stay they asked, I simply replied deliver on your promises, give me chance at command, increase my salary so i can afford to stay, sort out the school fees and give me back my life so i can enjoy my family by allowing me to fly reasonable long haul hours. The reply was that current policy does not permit us to do that.
In the words of the soon to be late Mr ED “You’re obviously not getting my message. We don’t accept email objection letters. Additionally, our contracts with all employees allow for revisions to the conditions and policies of the company so long as they are advised to the employee – it does not require a ‘re-negotiation” – your contract is worthless, it is a guide, the writing is on the wall chaps, bail if you can, plan if you can’t, join at your peril.
I for one have acted and not just talked, life on the outside is good despite what they will have you believe. You simply cannot not apply a low-cost short haul model safely to a long haul operation. My advice to the wannabe if you have a job and it pays your bills stay, if you’re out of work and get an EK job offer by all means take it but be warned!
Maybe the coming bumper profit will see some changes for the better either through logic and open eyes or through economic competition for staff, but I seriously doubt it.