garvan post
I have to agree with the assessment of the MP's post by 380 - nicely balanced and thoughtful!
I am not a TRE/TRI with EK - just been here 11 years on the line but I can say - and I get the housing allowance - that gross annual salary was over 800 000 dhs last year, not including per diems and provident fund contributions...so the other guys assessment is correct at well over 200 k USD per year as a package.
yes not much overtime paid anymore, and I dont have to send kids to school here so my cost base is a bit lower.
I have bad Dubai days too - and that is hard to handle sometimes but the package is as the other guys have discussed - and tax free for us Ozzies ( well at the moment! )
I was out in the desert with a few other guys the other day dirt bike riding and honestly it was hard not to smile with your own personal sand pit to play in, heat can be a killer and definitely not in Kansas any more Toto... but it is what you make of it and home is not always better overall.
Some more time off in a row with a return to T+Cs like before would be nice... but I dream?
Of course QATAR have just announced that they intend to recruit pilots and base them in North America ( DC) and Asia to reduce the cost base to recruit and retain them.
This came from Ali Bakar the CEO and his words were :" this will be game over for our competitors recruitment programme' unless they copy the model. We can increase productivity, reduce total employee costs and make everyone stay in the outfit longer. It is far cheaper to retain than train pilots. The narrow perception that airlines keep pilots locally based to retain salaries within the local economy is flawed and non-sensical. It is just that no one sees it yet but us" Reuters /AAP...
WJA