Has anyone else come across such a convoluted system to book leave?
Emirates
-One window of opportunity per year to attempt to get what you would
want via "bid".
-One additional window of opportunity per year to attempt to get anything you could
stomach given you didn't get anything that you wanted.
-Otherwise NOTHING AVAILABLE FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR (leave system totally locked with no leave showing available). This is for Captains; F/O's not so sure as we seem to have a bunch of them.
Then further into the year (when the company sees fit to burn off your leave as they now view your leave balance as "unacceptable") they will either open up a very short notice "leave available" period or otherwise force leave upon you (at dates/times of their choosing and many times in blocks of 4 days).
Nice when you have a "decree" company where you can write your own rules/change the rules at a whim (Emirates are not government employees and therefore do not have to abide by the government labor laws, nor a private company and therefore do not have to abide by the UAE labor laws).