Basings? EKs future
 

EK Management sucks!

Fleet is busy with petty politics, HR is sleeping and Management are all old farts worrying about their own superannuation and salary increases. Every one knows that basings are the future wonder why management are closed to this idea. Who wouldnt want to go home every day?

The future
 

will be basings in Europe or the USA. Look at the Asian carriers, even the Indians understand this. Nobody wants to live in the sandpit if they don't have to. EK will offer basings before the aircraft will be parked. :}

Money!!
 

The only thing that matters to Ek is Money.
If it becomes cheaper to base people then it will happen.
If it's not cheaper then it will not happen.

Wrong Jack
 

It cannot be cheaper to pay for business tickets home and loosing seat revenue. I think at the moment there are still enough pilots willing to move to the pit.

Another aspect on basing vs no basing is - Do they want you to bring your money out of the UAE and spend them elsewhere? I think not. At the moment they could prob up your pay to "sort out" recruitment problems, knowing that if you make more, you will spend more... In DXB that is. Its all a great circle - they pay you, you spend it on their house, schools, restaurants, shops etc etc. Basing will be the ABSOLUTE last resort for them if you ask me.
Good luck to all!
/CP

With so much of EK flying now ULH, it would be a simple matter to build two dovetailing rosters that had Pilot 'A' flying a service into the port where Pilot 'B', the other half of the dovetailing roster takes it on back to Dubai.

I don't mean he takes over the same flight that day, but the same flight the next day that the incoming pilot would have done if he was on a standard roster. Reserve cover could be easily provided if part of the deal was that Pilot 'A' would have to take the flight out if Pilot 'B' goes sick.

Just like women pilots and pilots with no jet time now being acceptable to EK where once they weren't, basings or rosters written around a remote base will happen eventually - but only when it is forced on them and they see no other way to fill seats at the pointy end.

In the meantime, CaptProp's comment is spot on - the whole object of the exercise is that we pour as much as possible (and more) of what they pay us back into Dubai Inc. That is the reason expats were allowed to buy real estate in the UAE - and look how successful that has been so far, both for Dubai Inc. and many of the pilots who got into the Dubai RE market early.

If basings or pseudo basings ever do come to pass, perhaps one way they could introduce it and not open the proverbial floodgates would be to limit such basings to pilots who had been in the company for 'n' years (say 10?).
I appreciate that this would cut the FOs out of the equation, but at least in the initial stages of any such scheme, I don't think the FOs could expect to be included, if only for the reason given by CaptProp.

There's hope something like this may come to pass, for the EK pilot group, as much as it might have grown, is becomeing a smaller and smaller part of the expat population in Dubai. I see in an article in the Melbourne Age that after the enormous expansion in Dubai over the last few years, the percentage of the Dubai population made up of UAE Nationals has now dropped to 3%, where the overall UAE figure is something under 20%. (It was around 18% in Dubai ten years ago.)

The whole article might be of interest to some: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...091278406.html

If, and thats a big IF, they got really hard up to get pilots basings might help. But it would make sence to have FO basings only and all upgrades in DXB that way you would fix the recruiting and just piss off the Captains you were going to loose anyways. Im just waiting for the next better offer and EK basings might not be the better offer

wiley
 

Gday mate,


you mentioned that they are now looking at women pilots along with pilots with nil jet time... i thought that 2000hr jet is still a req?

Answer on the Portal, under 2007 Rumour Buster. Been revamped along with most of the Portal.

EGGW.

Prop,
I think they dont give a toss if we pilots spend our money in dubai, they are so loaded with money, they dont need our peanuts, the money 1800 pilots earn is nothing compared with what they spend on a lazy afternoon.

Captain Props suggestion that it is about keeping the cashflow inside Dubai is feasible but when you look at the scale of business in the UAE and particularly Dubai your salaries totalled up equal a drop in the ocean??

Plus the fact that the Dubai royal family is investing heavily in business outside the UAE and shifting money of it's own abroad. So perhaps keeping the money inside Dubai insn't the real reason?

Blue Foot

I'm with Captain Prop. The Rulers like the money-go-round, even if it's relatively small sums.
If money is spent abroad by the workers it never comes back, but money that Dubai invests offshore does come back.
Standby for no basings.