Well if this is true then their desperate measures are becoming even more desperate and extreme. It's borderline vindictive at this stage. As usual electing to punish everyone for the actions of a few.

Harry
If I might be so bold as to correct your methodology of calculating your hourly rate. My contract does not specify 900 hrs. That is an assumption based on regulated yearly max. Probably soon to change!

To my mind it is thus:
12 x Salary + 12 x Provident Fund Contribution. You could add in education and accommodation etc if you were working out your cost to company but probably not in this context.

This should be divided by hours expected before overtime is paid. That would be 1083 (12 months working to productivity the threshold) but then factored by 323/365. We are contracted 42 days leave. These are our days not the company’s, a fact which they conveniently forget when they cram hours into any month that contains leave. Simple theft IMHO.

Thus it is 958 hours of productivity that could be expected. These can be made up how the company chooses: flying, augmenting, sim supporting, training etc.

Hence on a Captains salary of 48K (an approximate median) the rate is 690 per hour.

Overtime is cheap for the company given the true cost of the pilot is much higher if you factor in accommodation, education, medical, uniform, HR overhead etc. The true cost of a captain per hour is close to AED 1000.

In most companies overtime is at a greater rate than the normal hourly rate as an acknowledgement for additional effort and the increased stresses in all aspects of life when one is called to work beyond that which was envisaged.

I see overtime as a punishment where I am forced, without choice, to work for less than my agreed worth. For a company that seeks to be a global brand leader, I find this practice deceptive, misleading and exploitative. Hardly the stuff of greatness and ultimately why the branding will fail. History shows this.

As for the emails of how great we are doing and how we should all be proud, excited and grateful, I find them condescending and demeaning. I wish they would stop.

I doubt the slaves building the pyramids were excited about the wonder they were creating. They probably just wanted more food and less beatings…..

And as I have said before, and will say again,

This airline should be the greatest airline job in the world. I just don't get why they don't want it that way.

Too expensive.

My old airline used to run a deliberate policy of keeping people down so that when there was trouble at t'mill, they could give things back to the pilots, but at a longterm cost of zero to themselves.
"Oh did you see they're going to give everyone the bases they want? They're having to give us what we want now". Wrong, they just deprived you of what you should have had in the first place.
Stockholm Syndrome at it's finest.

You certainly have had a distinguished career then AL.

Milk the cow and leave her to die.






*don't pay attention on me. I am here just to annoy management trolls.

I hardly think management practices are much of a reflection on me, whichever way look at it. Anyway, all worth it, I have enjoyed all my jobs in one way or another. However, as for EK, it's now behind me. I shall watch with interest and wish you all the best of luck in finding contentment.