One of my FOs the other day was telling me about his buddy who flys for EK as a 777 Captain. This FO told me his take home salary was MORE than the EK 777 skipper. He's a NB FO. Whoa! What does that tell you about EK salaries?
He also mentioned how much harder EK pilots work to get their salary, something about increasing overtime threshold to 90 hrs vs 80 where it use to be.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that pilots will leave the M.E. for better pastures with info like that.
I fly for a US legacy carrier, btw.