Another thought:
If Easy wanted to get rid of potential future competition (Monarch have stated that they are going head to head with the LCCs by getting rid of Longhaul and charter) without the need for a costly price war, all they'd have to do is expand, offer DECs and FO positions in the UK and hey presto, no more pilots left at Mon.
Simples.

who says that it is not quietly happening....

It's a pity that pilots have to take their families over to the middle east to seek employment. What happened to great Britain? Out CAA is loosing licensed crews at an alarming rate, but maintain a hands off attitude to protecting them.
150 guys to go emirates? Good luck, but once an expat, hard to return. Hard to keep the easa licence current . And the tax free salary is ok, but don't expect to be chatting to mum n dad on the Skype, it's still blocked in Dubai. Go figure .

I have to correct that - my son lives in Dubai and Skype works perfectly.

If your son lives in a private apartment, then he can Skype. Hotels are, by law, banned from allowing access.


The CAA is funded by the government and subscriptions by pilots to keep their licences current. Usually via the airline they work for. The CAA does not recognize time on foreghn types to maintain uk currency. Yet.
The Finnish authorities do. The Spanish do. The Irish do. The Turkish do. The Slovenians do. The Italians do.

So, a number of uk licence holders, working out of easa state have changed their competent authority. The uk CAA has to prevent its pilots working abroad to maintain income, Simple.
By preventing the licence to be transferred to say the middle east, they would preserve uk jobs.
Somple ?

I don't think so....

Skype
 

Wrong again. When my son went out there earlier this year he stayed in a hotel about 20 minutes from the airport for six weeks and used to Skype us regularly. I can remember him showing us the view from his window.

Skype is officially blocked in Dubai. A two second Internet search reveals this and its even stated on their website. People can get around this by using proxy servers and VPNs. Indeed, even some hotels, recognising it's good for business, get around it by routing traffic through foreign VPNs. Appears to be a loop hole in that proxy/VPNs are not banned by the state.

Similar problems for most expats living in places that look good, pay good but offer very little freedom and quality of life (if you are prepared to look beyond the superficial).

Maybe Skype is banned for use in bypassing Dubai's own telephone network for commercial reasons. It certainly works internationally for computer to computer. My real point is that to suggest that it is banned for some big brother surveillance or reduction of civil liberties reason is plain wrong.

Dubai is not a western city, but then neither is Hong Kong or Singapore. Dubai has some iron rules (no drugs anywhere and no alcohol at all when driving, for example) but some of the horror stories are wildly exaggerated. Professional ex-pats can have a very good life over there. The weather is good, apart from two months in Summer; westerners tend to be left alone to do their own thing; if you want to drink, there are plenty of approved bars (mostly in hotels); there are plenty of sports available; the money is good (although the cost of living there has been going up recently). There is also an almost zero crime rate. Most importantly, however, there are jobs. Money in your bank account and hours in your log book are surely good wherever they come from.

Thread is creeping here but from my experience,
Just about everything is banned in the UAE, does that stop any of it happening? No! Being discreet and not "rubbing anyone's nose
in it" works just fine, have a problem of any kind where the police get involved and then your in the brown stuff.
Skype works just fine with VPN as does euro tv.

FT/Monarch pension problems
 

its free to subscribe and will take you all of 2 minutes!!

The article states that the Monarch scheme will be one of the top five largest schemes taken on by the PPF.
Surely it must be time for the Mantegazza (net worth $5bn) to pay some appropriate compensation to those that have made a significant contribution to their wealth.
Some of the Mantegazza toys:
http://www.superyachttimes.com/artic...Marina-big.JPG

I've lost count of the number of friends and colleagues who have deeply regretted staying loyal to Monarch all these years.

The crews have had years of uncertainty and worry whilst the family have bled it dry and engineered a sale , ( or was it a sale ) forced new terms and conditions upon staff, some of whom cannot now afford to stay in the UK , driven the pension fund to PPF, despite the company NOT being insolvent, yet walked away extremely wealthy and shrugged off all responsibility towards their loyal and dedicated staff, some of whom have lost > 60% of their pension with little or no time to recover anything for their retirement.

I know of staff who after more than 20 years of loyal service were simply sent a p45 and final pay settlement in the post with not even a letter of thanks or recognition.

I believe some crews have hatched a plan to buy 30 lorries to take on Eddie Stobart !

Actually, I think the plan is to hire 30 trucks from Eddie Stobart, fill them with manure, and drive them down to Monaco to fill the 'Lady Marina'
Quid pro Quo.:)

November VR's to return 1st January, you couldn't make it up. Nice Christmas bonus for them :)

Announced today they're taking on 12 newly qualified Oxford graduates immediately, each forking out 30k, couldn't make that up either...well, actually you could.

So to sum up. They let 50 pilots go and they are now rehiring them!

The bean counters have missed a trick here. Forget the redundant pilots. 50 Cadets @ £30k each would have made them £1500000 :(