Samca
Samca,
Life isn't fair. If you want to go home once every three months then you do have 42 days annual leave at your disposal for this very thing.
You state you have no children so you are not concerned about travelling in school holidays this makes your life very easy. You simpy bid for 14 days off from your leave go home and fill your boots!
We have many US collegaues here who book a month off to go home as they have to travel so much further, we have guys here from South America who do very similar. Anyone coming from Europe really has no issue as it is very easy to get home if they do not travel in the school holidays.
Jetstream and British Guy make some good points. You will never get 4 days off from the bottom of the seniority list, plan on 2!
The best point however is coming here. To be honest Dubai is exactly what you think it is. If you come for interview and don't think wow OMG I hope I get this job as I can live like this for 20+ yrs or at least yep I can do 5-10yrs to develop my career and move on then don't join. If you are joining for the money as a junior FO trust me you will be dissapointed as the cost of living is now high enough that you will break even or live to such a low standard that you will question being here and that is assuming you have no debt at all! (Yes granted without children it is a lot cheaper but do you plan to never have children?)
Personally we love Dubai and hope to not move untill retirement. I do not understand why people want to live in UK when they can live here. But it isnt for everyone and were not all from the UK! But there is a reason that the largest proportion of non subcontinent expats are from UK.
You can only choose from what is on the table so get offered the job first and put all your other options on the table and then pick wha is right for you. I would suggest however if you are already questioning committing a small period of time such as 3yrs then I'm not sure if it is for you. EK now has a 5 yr bond and I think that is a good thing for many reasons ( but that is for another thread)