Free fuel
No I dont believe they get cheap or free fuel either , however if normal subsidies that are applied to car petrol in DXB which last time I was there was about 6 dhs a gallon or so I think( happy to stand corrected) so pretty cheap by oz stds.
So if the AVTUR at least out of DXB did not attract any of the sort of taxes applied to other carriers globally at there source, there could be an argument about a partial subsidy in effect.
Airlines more or less pay the same for their jets, the same for fuel and the same for other elements on a global scale. Thus , the only significant difference is the cost of labour.
So.... If you take the total number of EK employees as 50000 divided into about 150 jets you get....around 333 per aircraft... So not the worlds lowest figures... ( I think southwest have 80 per jet) .
Ipso facto if they are making the sort of profits they are , the main variables being labour costs leads to the conclusion they have a lower wage cost base.
Which is probably true.
Widebody captain doing average hours on probably 250k AUD tax free but total employee cost still equals 250 to EK, versus QF 380 captain on around 350k .... So 30% lower ... And this is across all employee groups...that is the reason they make coin.
Oh , and the fact they can vary FTLs, get waivers , annex a,b,c variations
And increase overtime hours to 92 per month from around 80 12 years ago helps the bottom line.
Even a govermnent owned airline like China Southern cant get its CAAC to be as maleable to changes as the GCAA is to EKs requests...but then the chairman of CZ is not the chairman of the CAAC either... Hmmmmm ?
But is still a good gig by most measures hence the line up to get in there- I had a good time and if you can keep below the radar its still a good opportunity compared to staying in a slowly dying career path at QF!
WJA