Thanks. I thought as much.
Sounds like it is, as you say, not an unfair advantage but a situation where the EU is trying to enforce its employment laws and bloated economic model onto other countries by trying to tell other countries how they should employ people and behave, so as to make themselves as uneconomic as EU based airlines ? basically, be as sh*t as EU airlines or we wont let you in.
It appears you have a significant chip on the shoulder there if I may be so bold.
Staff choose to work for airlines and if they don't like the terms then they shouldn't go there in the first place - but very many do, and are very happy doing it for the money.
It sounds like you are the sort of person who makes a choice to sign up to something, and then spends their life complaining about your choice, as if someone else forced you to make it.
Workers in the ME choose to get a tax tree income (not a tax free environment though) and forego the bloated bureaucracy and tiny benefits of the EU - even if working in the EU were actually available to them as a choice.
Its personal choice. A choice which you would appear to believe should not even be offered.
As to the tax issue, most people flying and working in the ME wouldnt even get a job in their own economies so its hardly sensible to suggest they should stay in a broken economy when they can work overseas and send valuable money to their families at home to support them.
Maybe the EU should stick to flying in its own region if it plans on remaining hopelessly uncompetitive in the world market, and offering second class service for first class prices ?
PS the concept of a level playing field is complete BS in business. The inventor of the next successful 'widget' wont give up that advantage just because the EU wants the others failures to have chance will it ? Oh yes, its the EU - failures must be protected even when the market changes and they are completely useless.