Emirates Payrise
 

Quick question.

When was the last time EK gave a proper pay rise? I understand that they "award" the increments based on performance, but when was the last pay rise to compensate for inflation? Inc housing, schooling etc? Just wondering how it now compares to Europe.

Cheers

I think it was circa 2011/12 with the last one being a very small amount. There has been some tinkering with flying pay rates and the hours above which overtime kicks in, although EK took that back by making it a convoluted process if you swap a flight thats in overtime already.

School fees have been adjusted since.

However the company views the step increase as a pay rise, as the pilot body was told by both the head of flight ops and the one of the guys in charge of setting salaries.

The Emirates Pilots remuneration is based off a Salary Scale, a Pay per hour component and possibly a Productivity payment if flying above a threshold of around 88 hours in a 31 day month.

The Salary Scale goes from Step 1 to Step 35.

A new joining FO would come in on Step 1. Approx. AED 25,500 (3.675 AED = 1 USD)

Each step is an increment of 3% above the one below thus Step 35 is approx. AED 69,500

Originally the step was awarded regularly each year as it was an increase for Experience, Seniority and Loyalty. The whole salary scale was published annually with the salary review with an explanation on its application. On attaining command an FO jumped 10 steps up the scale. The expected annual step was given consistently until 2004 when it became discretionary. Since then it has not been given on at least 5 years.

If there was a “salary increase” then the whole scale was moved up by the percentage increase while still maintaining the 3% step. The last significant salary increase was 5% in May 2011.

The salary scale has only been increased by 0.5% since May 2011. As such a first year FO joining today will be getting AED 180 more than one joining in May 2011. Hence Emirates has been steadily eroding salary scale through inflation.

On top of the basic salary pilots get paid for the hours they fly. FOs get AED 63.00 per block hour and Captains AED 78.75 per block hour. Assuming an annualized 80 hours per month this would result in flying pay of AED 5,040 for an FO and AED 6,300 for a captain per month.

In 2011 the flying pay was AED 45 and AED 60 respectively making an 80 hr/mth flying pay of AED 3600 and AED 4,800.

Combining the two, an FO joining in May 2011 would be paid AED 28,800 for an 80 hour month. Today he is paid AED 30,500 for an 80 hour month. This represents and increase of 6% in the last 8 years.

The published UAE inflation rates have been around 2% per annum for the same period (varying from 1% to 4%) This compounds to an approx. 20% increase in cost of living since 2011. Many would argue these figures are conservative. They also ignore a 5% VAT introduced in 2018

If remuneration had kept up with inflation, a First Year FO today should be taking home an additional AED 4,000 per month.

The Productivity Pay is awarded for block hours above 85 in a 30 day month and 88 in a 31 day month. When first introduced, the thresholds were 81 hours and 83.7 hours respectively. Productivity is essentially a considerably higher rate of flying pay above these thresholds. It was introduced to reward pilots for hard work and to force rostering systems to balance rosters.

On inception the Productivity Pay system worked well as it was effectively Pro Rated in months when pilots went on leave. I.e. If half the month was spent on leave then the pilots could expect to fly approximately half the hours in the remainder of the month to achieve the productivity threshold, as would reasonably be expected. (EK pro-rates absolutely everything else)

However through various contortions (too complex to explain) this has been removed. Now a pilot who has half the month on leave will still have to fly 85/88 hours before being paid Productivity.

This facet is exploited to its full extent as the company seeks to maximize the hours in any month a pilot has leave because it essentially it does not have to pay for productivity above the pro-rated threshold. It is not unusual to see rosters containing 7-10 days leave still containing up to 85 hours. No Productivity will be paid. The best way to achieve this is roster compression with ULR.

This dynamic distorts both the Bidding System and the Leave System. ULR flights are not given to some pilots who bid for them as they are awarded to others who have leave in the month in order to maximize their productivity. Likewise any pilot would be insane to bid for short periods of leave in a month as he will still have to fly up to 85/88 hours without any additional pay. In effect he/she has given away the leave. As such most pilots bid for the maximum leave in a month as it leaves less opportunity for roster compression on the remaining days. Because of these dynamics, those who might bid for short leave blocks do not, and the leave system struggles to award longer blocks, resulting in less leave satisfaction or simply forced leave.

In summary this distortion of the Productivity Pay system can be likened to a office worker who goes on leave then is expected to work at night to make up the lost hours, with no additional pay.

I’m often incredulous at the various forums and washups that pilots attend with management during which there are multiple complaints of roster dissatisfaction, leave dissatisfaction and fatigue. Promises are made to try and improve the systems. Of course they are futile because the systems cannot be balanced as long as the Productivity Pay system does not account for leave by pro rating the balance of the month. However the company saves tens of millions of AED per annum by this clawback of leave so its unlikely to change any time soon without a complete overhaul of remuneration.

As remuneration should be proportional to work which in turn is proportional to fatigue, the EK remuneration system is at the root of most of the problems in these areas.

In terms of a wholistic overview of the past 2 decades of EK remuneration the following may be of interest:

In May 1999 a first year FO earned AED 16,000. There was no flying pay and this was the monthly take-home even if on leave. With this he could buy 15.5 Oz of gold ($280)

Today a first year FO will earn around AED 30,500 assuming an 80 hour month. With this he can buy 5.9 Oz of Gold ($1400)

Perhaps that puts it in perspective. However this is not unusual to Emirates or even airlines as a whole. This is the dynamic that over the past few decades has resulted in the ever growing transfer of wealth to the richest and ultimately will lead to the unravelling of society as we know it.

Pay scale
 

Not quite sure Pixy mentioned it, but another interesting thing happened somewhere between 2004 and 2014, the pay scale which used to be available for anyone to consult is now secretly kept in a "retribution manual" which is not accessible to the employees.
this adds to the whole transparency....
like the seniority list which just disappeared one day.
Who cares, really?

So you think you should get a pay rise every time tax goes up?

Yeeessss that's how reality works isn't it? :rolleyes:

Chesty, nobody is suggesting that is how it works. The introduction of VAT represents an additional erosion of our purchasing power. It is a simple fact. Make of it what you wish.

In response
 

Folks – If I may respond. Not to dispute your points but perhaps clarify for those wanting to know how the system works and the history.

KippaLippa

The last time the pay scale was published was in 2003 along with the annual pay review, as always. In 2004 we got the pay review but the salary scale was not published with it. At the time they needed and were recruiting DEC’s. However not all DEC’s came in on the same salary. Technically they should have come in on Level 1 and immediately jumped to Level 11 as per policy. Some would not accept this salary so negotiated a higher one. EK simply put them on higher levels to accommodate, thus disrupting the established system. In order to avoid the understandable outrage from Captains who had been in the company as FO’s and upgraded to captains, the system was made opaque.

Pif Paf

Yes the seniority list was effectively scrambled so that individuals could not calculate the attrition rates and query them in various forums. Vague excuses were used, none of them convincing. Attrition was up to 7% earlier this year. Lately it has dropped to about 4.9%. But its all about how you measure it. With creative statistics the company claims it is lower.

It is a fact that the company makes it difficult to do any analysis when it knows the area is problematic. The removal of Duty Time on rosters in 2011 is another example. At this point A330 pilots were doing up to 50% more duty time than other fleets and getting proportionately less rest. Answer: Remove the Duty Time column from the rosters and only publish Block Time. Many excuses made, none with merit as the cabin crew maintained a roster with Duty Time column published for years after. This incidentally was due to the large increase to the productivity threshold in 2009 on the basis of more ULR flying. Someone forgot to take into account that the A330 didn’t do ULR. How those crews managed to avoid a fatigue related accident is a credit to their professionalism. It did knock years off their lives I expect.

Fliion

The increase in productivity threshold, I would not call a pay cut in the strictest terms. I somewhat glossed over that as it is complex and I wanted to simply stay with the remuneration rather than the increase in rate of work for that remuneration.

However I take your point in that it removed money from the pocket. It resulted in 2 outcomes. Less take home pay as most pilots were worked to the new threshold, so pilots lost thousands in Productivity Pay. The second being a drop in pay per flying hour in total. Simply put they cut our rate of pay by demanding more hours for the same money.

It was a considerable reduction, as you say around 17% more work demanded for the same pay. It was publicized as a temporary measure to deal with the 2009 financial crisis. It was much later marginally reduced to the current 88. I think this was because the fatigue levels with non ULR rosters were alarming.

The Productivity Pay system still remains the underlying problem in all aspects today. Introduced in 1996, it was sensible and fair, and designed to reward those who “went the extra mile”. It was of great benefit to both parties. The company benefitted as the additional hours were about half the cost of what was paid in total for an block hour (cost of pilot per annum divided by 900) and existing pilots could earn more without additional overhead cost. Most importantly it catered for proportional productivity thresholds when pilots took leave (albeit with a marginal benefit to the company)

Again in 2004 this was disingenuously contorted when they removed many aspects of the system but lowered the thresholds claiming it would be “cost neutral”. It may indeed have been cost neutral to them but totally unbalanced the process leading to an unfair system that allowed abuse, the main one being it allowed the company to compress rosters in an effort to make pilots work back their leave for no productivity pay. Despite lowering the threshold of a 31 day month to 78 block hours, we find ourselves today doing 88 block hours before Productivity kicks in.

This of course lead to other problems. Example; limiting days off before and after leave. This was done on the claim of one pilot calling in fatigued after leave and days off. The story may have been true though we don’t know the background, however this was never the reason to limit days off after leave. The truth is that the message was not to expect days off before or after leave because you are unlikely to get them. Your roster will be compressed to make up for the leave you are taking!

Summary

The remuneration has failed to keep up with inflation. AIMINGHIGH123 is correct in that this is the same throughout the industry. I believe the trend will continue. A stark warning to anyone seeking to take up the career. A warning to those early in the career to perhaps consider alternative plans unless you want to fly yourself to an early grave. I cant see our cadets keeping this up for the next 40 years.

Technology is largely responsible. Companies can sustain much less experience as the many automated and improved systems allow less experienced crews to perform relatively safely. Essentially automation is already diminishing our rewards for experience we have. I suspect the next step is to vastly reduce the requirements for pilots augmenting in the cruise further leading to effective salary cuts. I don’t see single pilot ops for many years.

However, I do believe that the cost cutting by lowering experience has hidden unforeseen consequences. Ask Boeing how this has worked out for them. Cozy with the regulator and cutting aggressively while claiming the product is as safe. Sound familiar? They simply couldn’t anticipate how it would catch up with them. It always does in this industry.

As for this company… IMHO there will be no satisfaction on issues like rosters, leave and fatigue until our hugely complicated, administratively inefficient and expensive, and eye-wateringly inequitable remuneration system is completely overhauled.

It’s easy to do with intelligence and a good background (which I’m not convinced many managers actually have on this topic) but it would require input from sensible pilots who understand the system and a management that had a genuine interest in rewarding proportionately and curbing the fatigue and inexperience threat that hangs over us and will inevitably manifest in some way.

Take any emirates pax say 100 and have them fly as paxs, NOT WORKING. Fly them long haul with associate fatigue factor for 2 months and ask them if they would feel safe flying emirates.

Let me quickly stop you there. Frontier airlines here in the U.S. didn't have a payrise since the 2005 bankruptcy. They only voted in a new contract 4 months ago...and that's with a union. Go read threads about Atlas Air; another U.S. outfit with a union and one of the lowest paid pilots in the Nation. They are currently in court regarding a new contract that was amenable back in 2016.

Air Canada has no step increases for the first 5 years for FOs, and the basic there is as good as the guys who ask you if you would like that meal large.

EK are supposed to be compensating us for living away from home in a climate that is really only fit for camels. Do not underestimate the costs and stresses of being thousands fo miles away from family and friends for possibly a couple of decades, especially as parents start getting older and more frail. Somewhere along the line Emirates appear to have forgotten that and believe their own PR to the extent they think people would actually rather be here than at home.

The most sensible thing Aminghigh has ever written. Tragic, as it used to be a job you wanted to keep until you had to retire.

A comparison of which airline is the worse for cutting terms and conditions or which behavior towards their employees is more abhorrent etc., is futile without a detailed examination of many factors. No one has enough access to make an accurate assessment. Besides what is gained apart from perhaps a list of employers one should avoid?

The fact is that industry-wide the T&C have been radically eroded in the airline industry. And indeed in many other industries. The entire fabric of corporate behavior has changed, putting the interests of shareholders and executives in direct conflict with those of the employees with devastating social implications for the immediate stakeholders and indeed the public at large. The Boeing 737 Max fiasco is a glaring example. As the regulators are in the pockets of corporates it is therefore not surprising that they are not looking further afield to see how endemic this is in the entire industry, though with differing manifestations.

One only has to look at France Telecom whose executives are on trial for murder because of their systematic abuse of employees leading to 35 suicides, to see how far individuals will go to protect their bonuses. (See WSJ) And they had a union for all the use it was to the 35 driven to such desperation. Imagine the implications of this in the airline industry. Thankfully we are not there.

In our own sphere however, I feel that the pilots themselves must take some responsibility. One does not need a union to retain T&C and slow the erosion. Much is in the hands of the employees themselves if they are smart, professional and diligent. We have allowed ourselves to be manipulated and marginalized often without a murmur of dissent and in some cases with groups working in direct conflict to enable their employers to divide and conquer with ease.

Obviously many of us cannot directly confront the employers on an individual basis. But through small acts of sensibly based passive resistance we can demonstrate that some changes are simply not worth the trouble, some cleverly introduced erosion should be rescinded, or some historic assumptions should be reconsidered.

I am often amazed at pilots who come to work clearly sick or fatigued. When queried they express the opinion that they will be victimized for reporting unfit. In my experience that is unlikely unless they themselves have been abusing the system. Aside from that ,there are in fact many remedies to this.

Primarily, it is unprofessional and unfair to do this. Sickness, if genuine can be validated by medical practitioners giving the company a headache if this leads to disciplinary action. Many call in sick if they are in fact tired or fatigued. In my own company these are handled quite differently though most do not know the subtle differences. The company itself has skewed the process to muddy the waters. My company calls fatigue "sickness" using essentially the same rostering codes for the two. Ridiculous really, as they are not remotely the same thing. But convenient to hide the fatigue aspects in the sickness statistics from the regulator to prevent interference in ever increasing duty times.

One is either sick or fatigued, yet many will report sick when in fact they are fatigued, playing directly into the company’s agenda. These days the fatigue itself can often be validated with modern Apps, the model of which is exactly what the company FRMS itself uses. A good record of duties and appropriate screenshots would be enough to rebut any future queries. Insist on a printout from the company FRMS for future use.

In many instances, pilots avoid putting in fatigue reports when this occurs during a duty. Either through fear of reprisal or sheer laziness. Enough reports on the actual duties that are a step too far will soon see the company make changes. It always has. The managers do not want a trail of evidence leading to their inaction.

Pilots do not bother writing about the obvious abuses in duty times. One instance is likely to be ignored but a couple of hundred will not. This only represents a small percentage of the pilot contingent. Duty times before blocks off were extended to more realistic values through mass protest and some judicious use of media. We still have the same duty time after blocks on which falls way short of the reality. However it is seldom mentioned. I guarantee a few hundred polite emails on the inadequacy of these timings would see change. I can also be confident few have the skills or are too timorous to do this despite the fact they would not be victimized.

Pilots return from leave and fly compressed rosters, clearly fatigued in the process, without doing the right thing and using the tools available to avoid this happening. At the same time they allow themselves to be taken advantage of economically. Have they no self-worth at all?

If one does not take the time to logically, unemotionally and politely, put in writing the failures and dangers of the various systems that govern us, one can hardly be surprised when the management assume all is well and push the limits a bit harder. In many instances they actively encourage us to do this to have the data to show the executives in order to drive through the changes. Yet many do nothing. They might speak up at some forum which is nothing more than egotistical venting as there is no written trail so feared by the top.

No one has earned the right to comment on Pprune unless they have done all they can in their sphere to resist stupidity and officially document their objection to irrational and dangerous changes.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

A good post Pixy but I feel I need to comment on one part though:

Sickness that has been certified by an AME has in the past, been used as an excuse to delay a command course for an F/O. We have often heard about colleagues who are summoned for a 'chat' on the third floor about their certified sickness. When it comes to managing sickness, the company appear to be incredibly shortsighted and simply view the employee as being less productive than they should be, instead of initially considering exactly why the employee was marked sick.

Decline in T&Cs goes much wider than aviation. I remember in the early 2000s, my dad was a police constable at the top of his scale earning £42k. My mum was a clerical worker earning £20k on a part time NHS contract; that’s the equivalent of £67k and £32k respectively in today’s money.

Today the top of the police constable scale is £38k and a full time clerical worker in the NHS still earns £20k max. Leave allocation has reduced and final salary pensions are gone.

There are a lot of reasons for the pathetic levels remuneration across the developed world today; corporate & individual greed, increasing population & reducing workforce, over regulation, decline of the west... the list is endless and I think the snowball has got too big to stop.

I fear the only way to succeed in life is to plot your own career path, accept that there will be many twists and turns in your life, accept that you cannot rely on any single organisation to provide you with a living and just make the most of what life throws at you.

Its a brave new new world we live in, those who succeed will be those who can adapt. Sitting around looking back into the past with rose tinted glasses is not going to get you anywhere.

No need to be rude champ. I asked for your clarification.

You said “if any time of rest is infringed due swap”. So what does this mean then? Have you swapped into a duty that infringes on your rest period(s) or not?

The swap system is fully automated and uses FTL criteria plus a company created buffer for rest periods and flying hour limits. Therefore any swap that is made, will be comfortably within FTL limits. I think my colleague is trying to highlight a scenario when a swap is made, that simply reduces your rest period.

Thanks, that's clear.

I'm not sure where I sit on that one then. I can see both sides of the argument.

Cheers.

All good.
loads of money.
Happiness everywhere.
Carry on.

Regards,

Kippalippa

Not wanting to be seen to defend the company, since stagnant terms and conditions are a concern for us all at EK but if I may put your example into context Cerbus, QF, AA and DL all declared operating margins close to four times the size of what EK posted a few months ago in their 2018-2019 results (2.7%).

To those reading this and thinking of joining, bear in mind that EK is no longer the lean and efficient money making machine it used to be. You must take into account the very real possibility that future improvements to the remuneration package may be infrequent in nature, against a backdrop of increasing living costs in what is already an expensive place to live.