Best retirement plan?
 

Seems like QR and others airlines don't provide pension plans for their pilots. Please provide feedbacks on your choices for retirement plans, private company, banking, Pension plan, investements...

Take the housing allowance, buy an apartment, use it while working, when get retired rent it out or sale. Good luck and hope for an emerging real estate market. :ok:

Right but how does it work really when you buy in Doha for an expat? How long you keep your app.

Or have bad luck or make a mistake, get fired, unable to sell the apartment because locals won't let you sell cheaper than the price of a new apartment, unable to get the clearance until you sell the place, unable to pay for the place because you cannot get a new job and leave the country until you finish the clearance, end up in jail. :sad:

How do you recognize expat pilots who bought a place in the Pearl? They fly fully configured and stabilized 20 miles before the final fix.

Can't you leave the country if you have a mortgage? :ooh:

Xaxa the joke was very funny :D but seriously what are the rules of buying in DOH and is it easy to find with QR allowances?

Keep in mind in the UAE, at flyDubai or Air Arabia, you still get the UAE labor law end of service benefits. Don't quote me exactly, but I believe it goes something like 3 weeks salary per year for the first 5 years, and then one month salary for every year after. Paid lump sum when you retire or leave. It can still add up to a decent coin depending on how long you stay.

I would NOT buy an a[artment in Doha at this stage untill you get there ansd see for yourself the value of the apartments AND the laws for expats owning freehold titles.

I think it could be a bad trap. You are better buying property in your home country.

My advice is to invest in some Gold and Silver rather than the corrupt and underperforming pension funds.

You can leave, but if you resign or get fired you will see that QR clearance procedure requires that you are free of loans from local banks. So you might get in big trouble if you do have a mortgage.

Not a joke, the described scenario did happen and might happen to you too.

OK, no problem, buy for cash, and you may spare the interest also.
(The only reason I would like to buy an apartment in the country I work for because I can use it for free. )

How about becoming a partner in a house of ill repute in Bangkok and offering aircrew discount?:ok:

Thought about that, but bussiness ownership is only open to locals by Thai law.

:{

If you buy in Qatar or Dubai, do you hold the property forever? What if you sale it?

same as anywhere else - if you sell you get to keep the cash. :confused:

Dukkoq, Xaxa wasn't making a joke. He was referring to the case of the A330 F/O from Panama, who got terminated a couple years back after a ground incident while taxiing in DXB. Ask around QR, many people know the story.

QR didn't stop him from leaving but the bank screwed him over pretty badly. The guy had taken a big loan to buy an apartment in the Zig-Zag towers, and the bank wouldn't give his exit permit until he paid back the loan he took for the apartment. Like a lot of people, he paid too much for the apartment off plan and after the 2008 property market crash it was only worth half what he borrowed, I believe the price was something like QR2 million riyal and the best offer he could get for it was QR1.2 million.

He had no house and no job, he went to the chief and asked for a second chance with QR and for his old job back, so he could pay the loan, but AAB said no. He was sleeping on the sofa at his friend's house in AKG while the bank kept him prisoner in Doha, for over one year. He had an offer of another job back in his home country but the bank still wouldn't let him leave. Finally he was so desperate he wrote a letter to the Emir during the time of Eid, begging him for mercy. Lucky for him the Emir actually read the letter and gave his exit permit, I guess he would still be there otherwise.

At least there's an happy ending:} but on an other note, I though I heard somewhere that you can lose your property after something like 90 years. Any truth to that?

And? Has he payed back the loan yet?
(In my country people chat on forums about to go to Dubai for work, take personal loan from the bank leave and never go back.)