“But likely the biggest one is that you are relying on Flight Crew Agency men telling you the big kind airline is paying all your Chinese tax”
Actually, the airline is covering your Chinese tax obligations. It’s a tax paid salary and so far after about 6 years the ATO are happy with it, as are the Canadian’s and EU.
The debate here overlooks something more important than how much the pilot is PAID and that is how much the pilots COSTS the company.
For arguments sake, if an EK and QF pilot take home the same money that is almost irrelevant as the QF pilot is costing Qantas much more to employ than the EK pilot.
Qantas are paying a much higher gross salary and have more inefficiency with consequential training costs when movement occurs and carry extra crew during down times as its too expensive to retrench pilots.
EK don’t have these costs.