It gets far, far worse.
Setting aside whether you actually receive 30 days, 42, whatever, for a moment. In those months where you do get some leave, you will fly pretty much a full roster's worth of credit anyway.
To my knowledge, when an office staffer takes leave, they are not required to work an extra hour or two a day or extra days of the week during their "non-leave" portion of the month to make up the hours "lost" during their leave. Which is in effect what flight deck/cabin crew are doing.
For the flight deck/cabin crew, it should not even be termed leave, it is simply guaranteed days off. Except:
- not as many as contractually required;
- never when you request it;
- and EK doesn't even keep to their own deadlines to publish it, making it impossible to plan ahead.
It's simply theft.
Why anyone would join under these conditions - for any reason, including being unemployed or from South Africa - is beyond me. There are simply too many better options if you wish to have a life.