With the new contracts at the US legacies and some of the increases in Asian contracts I'm not so sure EK is "well above industry average" When the AA/USA merger is complete and the new AA contract implemented there will be ~54,000 pilots in N. America with better T & C's than EK. Thats a huge block of the industry that skew's your industry average a good chunk upwards to where I think EK is now south of that figure. Especially if you go beyond pay rates and look at scheduling, real training, rigs, retirement and soft pay.