Congrats to emirates for beating the global trend again and on their way to becoming a real major player in the whole of Asia.As to the reasons for their strong performance, I strongly agree with ghost's views but in any industry , labor costs directly affects a company's bottom line.
As for mutt's theory
"Not exactly a fair comparison ??? You should try comparing the cleaners salary with his country of origin, which certainly wont be the UK." ,
I beg to disagree here ...it's not the country of origin that pay should be based on but the cost of living in Dubai that should be the deciding factor.What if Emirates were to hire a bangladeshi pilot, would they turn around to him and say, hey 2000$ is a lot of money from where you come so that's what we're gonna offer you, I think that would be grossly unfair and thank god, it doesn't happen that way.
In short, a cleaner's pay ,whether british,australian,american,bangladeshi should be the same at emirates and hopefully it increases from $200,if that is the correct figure...
