I think you and many need to look around and tell me where is getting better? Maybe RYR from euro land.
BA? Erm well they are now charging low hour pilots £18k for TR plus reduced salary to start with. Unheard of. 24 pay scale that is now 34 point pay scale. Time down route to be reduced to 24hrs soon even on ULH. First 7 years are horrible.
Possibly the US aviation sector is the only place that has improved T&Cs
Out of euro land from what I know AF is the best gig but obviously fluent in french a must.
Even our regional gig is completely on its knees. Ask the long term guys/gals and they all say it’s a lot worse now with pay that hasn’t kept up. 80-90 hr months when average flying hours on a duty 4-5hrs. Duty hours a month 170-200? 12 hrs min rest that they reduce by putting you in a hotel at home base.
Do the maths on that lot.

From an economy and economic point of view Dubai is very small and imports a lot. Naturally goods from far flung places would cost more. Storing goods is expensive because it’s 5000 degrees outside and doesn’t have a massive demand (population being quite small). It’s like people who go on holiday go and buy a Cadbury’s chocolate bar and complain because it’s double the price. Of course it is. They don’t have the distribution structures in place. Dubai is the same. What does it have? Oil, gas, metal exports? Not much else.
From a UK perspective we have a larger population, distribution facilities, big companies etc so cost to buy things will naturally be less. However...
We pay high tax. How much of which helps us out? Depends what situation you are in.
£100k salary in UK land means take home of £5.5k
480kAED 40kAED which would be £8k month.
For UK people my council tax is going up 8% this year. Last year 6%.
Recession is due soon so everyone and everything is preparing. I wouldn’t say it’s a Dubai or EK thing. My mate had a pay cut he is very high up at a UK based company but covers the UAE group so lives in Dubai.

From my point of view financially even if I spent my whole salary every month it wouldn’t matter because I would be renting my property in the UK. People coming from other places would be better places to do the same. My mortgage would be more than covered and cleared in 10 years if we stayed.
Going EK without a back up plan is probably unwise I would say it’s unwise in aviation anyway. An FO has lost his medical recently only been flying 2 years. The LOL is not that much and won’t help for long.

Locals being protected is nothing new to just Dubai this happens in many many many countries some of which are in euro land.

People are are going to read this and some will be like yeah yeah come and experience it.
I have friends who have lived in Dubai, AD, Qatar for 10 years plus one guy 30 years They love it but said it’s not as good as it used to be.
I know 5 people personally who lasted 1 year and couldn’t wait to leave.

I would say this. All the ones who wanted to leave had never lived in a large city.
I answered the questions of are you read for Dubai and I got mostly Bs a few As and Cs.
Most of the questions to me just seemed like someone who has never lived in a large city.
Driving wise roads in london are the same you get used to it. I do have to adjust when I drive outside of London. Camping under the stars would be my worst nightmare for a trip away. I spent enough camping when I was younger.

Anyway people will rip into this but as has been said some people will never be happy.

It doesn’t matter what the economic reasons are for the prices being higher, it matters that they are and that salaries are not keeping up. The salary is still OK, but just that....OK. Would I move from the West now to EK? Probably not, would I move back to Europe now? Probably not, however the s@@t bucket is filling very rapidly.

Discounts for coffee and the like are great, but the costs still remain far higher than many western cities. Would anyone in there right mind move here because they get discounted coffee?

Unfortunately the majority of positive comments here seem to come from non EK pilots and the majority of negative some from EK pilots. Choose who you decide to believe. Contributors to these threads are not always who they seem ......