From Arabian Business:

https://www.arabianbusiness.com/trav...er-a380-future

Hardly a surprise really, and lets be honest here..any business is looking at the demand going forward.
As an expat you assume a certain level of risk, in this instance it would be wise to be reducing risk as much as possible.
If I was a betting man I'd wager the 380 fleet will be shrunk to 40 airframes as rapidly as they can do it.
There are I suspect an awful lot of sub 6yrs of service pilots and the usual cadre of trouble makers nervously checking their emails right now.

I was talking to a friend who still works at EK on Friday night, he is in IT, not a pilot or CC. They are already making IT staff redundant (around 200 or so in the last 2 weeks) and there is talk of another 1,000 odd being given marching orders in the coming two weeks. He is an EK10 (as I was) and is now actively looking for new roles within the UAE and abroad.

So what I am saying, is I wouldn't believe anything that comes the Dubai govt. As anyone knows who has lived there, they are not known for being open, honest and transparent.

Think your maths may be a little out. When I left around 2 1/2 years ago EK and Dnata combined was around 100,000.

Yeah, fair go. Was just looking at the EK number and mistaking it for the group!

Typical.
So you don’t want to hear negative stories from ex-employees. You don’t want to hear negative stories from current employees, because they should just leave. Once they leave they shouldn’t post any warnings for others on here either.
Basically, all you want to here are happy-go-lucky stories about the company, have I got that right?

I don’t want to hear incendiary Stories without any true support. But of course in this forum anyone that posts anything that is positive is trolled around by people like you.
This is not the time to be posting such incendiary and baseless “rumours”.

to the south of dxb
 

CC crew are currently being terminated in bulk by google meeting 100 clicks to the south and pilots are bracing themselves for the inevitable. This is unfortunately not a rumour. Any announcement from "United", the Government etc? Of course not. I certainly hope the shed will be kept to a minimum but it doesn't seem that way. To think that the company will actually consider whether an employee has debts, car, house, kids in school etc or the effect of terminations on the economy of the country is naive.

Obviously a rocky road ahead. Just a time to be stoic and hope for the best.

I have to agree with Roca, the same usual suspects having a massive chip on their shoulder from some EK trauma. They bring no impartial advice to potential expats, they remain absorbed in their own bitterness, unable to let go, I suspect not that happy in their new lives.
For many of us the prospect of having to leave the UAE would be a sad day, for myself back to the UK depressing as hell.
Since the whole world aviation scene is in the same situation, I see little point in EK bashing with potential reductions, it's just throwing stones in glass houses. Best to wish everyone good luck wherever they are and show no ill will to those less or more fortunate that yourself.

no one is actually bashing EK - just stating the facts and it isn’t just EK that is getting the end of the stick here. Everyone in our industry is praying to avoid a pink slip. Look at every forum here - everyone is spending some nail biting days. It’s just a discussion and sadly a mere inevitability- forget the numbers - the culling is happening in all angles as we speak. As someone said even in the back offices of EK - IT Finance FD you name it. And not just that but also all the major airlines. So this is just a mere convo of what is going to happen in the next few days for many of us - it isn’t a fight - it is mere truth - things are bad and will only get worse till one day get better

Everyone should think about what they post. Clearly some people have no thoughts for the sensitivity of the words they post.

Apart from the number of employees, I have not seen many facts posted here. I have seen that post from the cabin crew website quoted, and used as a source for Bloomberg, but that doesn't make it fact.

Truth is, no-one knows what the future holds. Perhaps pilots will be let go, or perhaps whiteknight may be proved right with month on month off commuting. No-one knows until the decision is made and communicated by the company.

Relying on a cabin crew run website to decide what the future holds is just plain stupid. We hate the unknown, and not being able to plan ahead. But there is nothing that can be done now except wait. We need to wait for the company to communicate what the way forward is. Then we can plan, and all move forward. Perhaps that's in a different direction to where we thought we were going only a few months ago.

This is really weighing hard on some of our colleagues. So keep an eye out, and be supportive where needed. If we don't look after each other, no-one else will.

Don, as usual, is on the money. Very sad to see the Aviation World on its knees. We need to be thoughtful and sensitive in what we post. Ultimately again referring to Don, if we don’t take care of each other’s families then who will?

There are some top notch people at EK and I feel for them. Several have families with small kids half a world away. Panic inducing rumours are not helpful.

Best wishes to everyone.

Emirates Group Employee numbers 2019/2020 Financial Year averaged 105,730 - taken from the published and public Annual Report, which can be found here:
https://cdn.ek.aero/downloads/ek/pdf...eport_2020.pdf

There are around 57K EK staff and around 17K DNATA staff based in the UAE. Most DNATA employees are now based outside of the UAE nowadays anyway.

As White Knight said, hopefully we can emerge from this with some alternative work/lifestyle options for those that wish to embrace them. It will be very sad if the company goes straight for the jugular and reduces staff numbers without offering jobsharing/part time etc, which could limit any potential job losses.

“I don’t want to hear...”
”Trolled around by people like <me>”.
You remind me of Captain Veldhuyzen-van Zanten.
Something like: “Only my opinion matters, and if your opinion is different I don’t want to hear about it. If you don’t like it, why don’t you sod off? But after you sod off, I don’t want to hear your complaints either”.
It’s a common theme these days: “true support” to a story is in the eye of the beholder and it’s very common nowadays to discard, ignore or ridicule anything that doesn’t support ones opinion or point of view.
You definitely don’t have to agree with me, but I sure as hell don’t have to agree with you either.
Difference is: I don’t regard you as a troll. Merely arrogant. (Takes one to know one).

It would be foolish to think that EK will not be severely affected by this pandemic. They have no domestic network, a relatively small amount of origin/destination traffic and rely on long haul international connecting flights which will be the last sector to recover, particularly in the premium cabins.

Large areas of the world are likely to remain off limits for some time to come and they include most of the countries migrant workers come from. Transit bubbles between virus free countries are likely to require direct flights and if this isn't possible the enroute stop will be for fuel and crew change only. The A380 and B777 will be too big for the immediate future and whilst the A350 and B787 are more suited, they also enable competing airlines which operate them to offer direct flights on routes which previously wouldn't have made money and were left to hub airlines.

It's not all bad news though, EK are integral to Dubai and will get significant government support.

The leisure market makes up a significant portion of Ek's income. This will be the first sector to recover so it's not all bad. However the coming recession will obviously dent the market as people look to spend less. However, since Dubai itself relies heavily on tourism I can see them reducing the price of package holidays to make it more competitive with the mediterranean for european customers. The A380 is useless for most airlines, but since EK operates several frequencies a day to most destinations they can always consolidate certain routes into a single A380 service per day - as long as the flight is cheap enough they'll fill the seats,

First and Biz Class yields will take a hammering for a few years, but it will come back. We live in an ultra-capitalist champagne showcase society. People will still want to post selfies of their private suites on their A380 honeymoon.

Piet Lood

I am wondering if you are his ex wife and still a bit upset. What a lot of emotional dribble.