Perhaps their new airport is running behind schedule, so nowhere to house them?

Cxorcist I must say that SWH is correct in his posts.

You had a very good post to start off but as usual you could not help yourself and add as insult at the end of it. Why can't you just say your say and leave it to that. :ugh::ok:

SWH the Singapore road show, was that for EK?

Yep, and they are trying to employ another 500 pilots by year end. Even if they managed to convince every QF pilot being made redundant to join, they are finding it hard to crew the jets they have on order.

Depending on the fleet, time to command is going over 10 years. They will put you where needed, so even if being told you are going onto the 777, they can tell you after starting you are now on the A330.

As you can see, cadet SOs on the Airbus at CX would easily meet the requirement for a direct entry FO position on the A380 after 6 years, would they wait another 10+ years for a command ???

Salam Alaykum from the desert.

EK's 350 order had actually lapsed some time ago apparently, and there was always (disappointingly) talk that it would never arrive as the 777's, old and new, would be close enough in performance & payload to it to mean that operating the two types would make little enough sense...the -900 was for some time seen as being too small for EK's requirements. The total aeroplane numbers in the fleet year-on year are about the same, the type has just changed to be more 380's (annoyingly).

As for storage/the new airport, that is unlikely to become 'home' until at least 2020, and most of us expect it will be some time after that. Considering the amount of money they are pouring into DXB they seem to be intent on staying here for some time yet, however eventually the plan is the DXB will be EK only, everyone else including flyDubai will be at DWC and that may happen sooner. That will give EK a lot of headroom to play with for some time to come.

swh, as for recruitment...lots of rumours about them finding it difficult to get guys, many of us have our fingers crossed that this will mean pay going up but we're not holding out too much hope just yet. There is also some suggestion that some recent A380 joiners are now training on something somewhat smaller yet similarly Gallic, but as usual no-one has directly confirmed this.

As for command times, no-one knows...seems to be an eventual fleet size of 300-350 guessing at retirements etc, we have 200ish aeroplanes at the moment...so sometime before guys joining now, expansion commands may well stop...and guys aren't leaving as quickly as some people would have you believe!

Ma'salam, habibis.

Thehonourablefong, that is about the most accurate and factual account of the happenings in EK this forum has seen in a while.


I believe however, that TC has stated that the airline will mature at 250-280 airframes which is what the 9th floor believes the optimum fleet size to be.


Ma'a as-salāmah