EK is caught between a rock and a hard place with this year's pay review and 'bonus' awards.
The mantra from the top is 'cut costs, cut costs, cut costs' but EK has a worsening pilot attrition problem, an inability to attract anywhere near enough new pilots, a conveyor belt of 'firm' orders of new aircraft to manage, resistance from Trump to continued operations into the USA domestic market and an ever more more public degradation of the EMIRATES brand image to contend with.
And all of this against a backdrop of well paid pilot jobs being available in the Far East and ongoing opportunities for any US pilot who has had enough and wants to go home.
Emirates will do whatever Emirates wants to do, but it cannot control market forces and it would do well to heed the example set by Mr Al in QR. Otherwise, the consequences will be determined by market forces and not EMIRATES.
It remains to be seen if EMIRATES has matured sufficiently as an airline to acknowledge this and to act responsibly.