Prestige Jet is owned by a relatively minor cousin in the Abu Dhabi royal family, Sheikh Hamed Ben Ahmed Al Hamed, yet by all accounts they have enough wasta and other influence to get GCAA to ignore serious violations, grant exceptions to regulations, and protect the company, for example, blocking unpaid aircraft owners from de-registering their aircraft and taking them out of Prestige Jet. You can read such stories in the Prestige Jet thread and also in
http://www.pprune.org/middle-east/458678-clue-me.html .
Compared to EK, Prestige Jet is a puny playtoy for Sheikh Hamed Ben Ahmed Al Hamed, yet GCAA is made to look bad by its lack of enforcement of significant safety regulations there, especially in the face of whistleblowing employees bringing issues directly to GCAA's attention and then GCAA not responding. If Sheikh Hamed Ben Ahmed Al Hamed can flout judgments of the courts of Abu Dhabi and induce GCAA personnel who are supposed to exercise safety oversight to act as if it they are on the payroll of Prestige Jet, imagine what our Sheikh Ahmed can accomplish without saying or doing anything, just by fact of being in leadership positions at both EK and GCAA and everybody knowing how important EK is to the economy of Dubai.
Any aspiring GCAA employee would probably think twice before raising a serious issue with EK, regardless whether Sheikh Ahmed is on their Board or not. He need not say or do anything to make that happen.