United Pulling out of Dubai

[Screaming_Emu]

If you're serious I'd guarantee that for 2015 my 2nd and 3rd year pay at American will be higher than all Emirates FOs, including their housing allowance. Probably on par with their captains. And I fly a damn RJ. In the words of the bad ass Billy Gunn, I got 2 words for ya...

Oh, I've flown 3 legs in the last month and a half.

I was interviewing for s street captain job at PSA this summer. We were going around the room asking where everybody worked. One of the guys was a manager at a TJ max. We of course asked for more info. Turns out he was at Emirate and the working conditions were so bad he just quit. Sounded pretty terrible.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

We just had an Fiji Airways A330 expat Captain start here at VX as an A320 FO. It doesn't mean Fiji Airways sucks.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

We just had an Fiji Airways A330 expat Captain start here at VX as an A320 FO. It doesn't mean Fiji Airways sucks.

Right...but the things he told me sure did.

 

[derg]

We just had an Fiji Airways A330 expat Captain start here at VX as an A320 FO. It doesn't mean Fiji Airways sucks.

Sucked more than being your copilot at least, right?

France is an amazing country, Air France flies a lot of great aircraft, they pay their pilots more than their US counterparts and have a retirement. I even speak semi-conversational French but there isn't a snowballs chance in hell I'd go expat to do that because I'm always going to be the "hired help" and gangs of French-national copilots are going to treat me as if I shouldn't be there.

Now replace "France" with "United Arab Emirates".

No matter how vast that compound is, you're never going to be one of them and you will be "The Help" in perpetuity.

 

[ClarkGriswold]

So what's the story here? United, profiting more than a billion dollars a year (does that grant them access to the Evil Rich Corporation party of the 1%?) can't play in the sand box with the big boys and now wants the public to think that jobs are at stake? Psshh, if pilots lost any jobs they could go to Emirates and have a higher qol to go along with their bigger pay checks.

I'm sure I've posted this before but not quite. I had a 63 year old United new hire in my JS that was fresh out of the sand box as a 8 year 777 Captain at Emirates. Quite eye opening, think about that. Left there as a Captain to be a UA new hire. We also hired quite a few EK and Qatar pilots at my last regional job. They went to a regional just to escape.

 

[Apophis]

If you're serious I'd guarantee that for 2015 my 2nd and 3rd year pay at American will be higher than all Emirates FOs, including their housing allowance. Probably on par with their captains. And I fly a damn RJ. In the words of the bad ass Billy Gunn, I got 2 words for ya...

Oh, I've flown 3 legs in the last month and a half.

Plus, you don't have to live in the blast furnace known as Dubai. Win/win.

 

[Cóndor]

Well, if there really are subsidies at play here then don't worry, the oil price decline is making it a lot harder for these ME governments to subsidize anything anymore . . . Saudi Arabia is already running a deficit in its budget and it's using those curvy swords to slash all they can as long as citizen unrest is kept in check. That's the wonderful thing about capitalism . . . no matter how much it is distorted by skewed practices, it always manages to regain its shape and reach equilibrium at the end.

Now, the a-holes in charge of these airlines need to quit their whining and just suck it up . . . bankruptcy debt write-offs are just another form of subsidies (and anti-capitalist in my view) but I sure as hell didn't see anybody complain when all these airlines were run into the ground and they were asking for lifesavers left and right. Like everyone else said, they will never get ANY sympathy from joe public who is surely reading about record airline profits while being treated like freakin' cattle anytime they need to fly somewhere because driving is just not practical. They also need to offer better salaries to ALL their employees, from the ones low-crawling on the belly of the airplanes to the ones at the controls, so that they will be happier and thus ensure that the current crappy service becomes a thing of the past.

I really don't get it when American companies shy away from competition and go crying to the government about unfair practices when they themselves have been the beneficiaries of similar practices in the past. The belief that happy employees lead to a much better product should not be a foreign concept to anybody either, but then again greed clouds a lot of people's view, which is secondary only to the despicable job killing and terrorism culture of fear that seems to spew from CEOs and politicians these days.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Sucked more than being your copilot at least, right?

France is an amazing country, Air France flies a lot of great aircraft, they pay their pilots more than their US counterparts and have a retirement. I even speak semi-conversational French but there isn't a snowballs chance in hell I'd go expat to do that because I'm always going to be the "hired help" and gangs of French-national copilots are going to treat me as if I shouldn't be there.

Now replace "France" with "United Arab Emirates".

No matter how vast that compound is, you're never going to be one of them and you will be "The Help" in perpetuity.

I'll be a co pilot a long time.

Considering the history of French nationals in two Airbus accidents, I don't think they'll have any leg to stand o.. If they try, just say don't you have something better to do? Like learn not to stall this thing? Drop the mic and go on your break. Er wait, I wouldn't go on a break with those guys

As for Emirates, and Dubai in particular, the "the help" makes up the majority of that particular Emirate. The Arab locals number fewer. Dubai relies on foreigners there. If it wasn't for foreigners, Dubai wouldn't be anything. And I don't mean just the Indian Subcontinent slave workers. I meant he high paying educated jobs there.

 

[MikeD]

. Like everyone else said, they will never get ANY sympathy from joe public who is surely reading about record airline profits while being treated like freakin' cattle anytime they need to fly somewhere because driving is just not practical.

The public also won't be sympathetic when the institution of things like baggage fees was blamed on needing to offset high fuel prices, but then those fees are retained....much like a municipal tax that never goes away.......when fuel prices take a drop. And the airline is making good profits, while standard legroom and seat size goes down, and ticket prices go up.

 

[Alchemy]

I flew UAL on the DXB-IAD route in Business class once. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as the EK or EY 777 I've flown on similar routes (DXB-DFW, AUH-ORD) and not even close to the business class A380. I think EK is running their 777 business class with 7 seats per row vs 8 per row in on UA. No surprise that UA can't compete. The UAE shows what you can do with slave labor from south asia and full government support of an industry. Every country subsidizes their airlines to a degree but the UAE really makes supporting their airlines a priority. There's no way a country that size could have 2 airlines the size of EK and EY if they didn't.

Also, I will say that I found the UA flight attendants surprisingly were more attentative to giving me drink refills and friendlier/more courteous. Sure the EK F/A's usually look better but that's pretty much all they have going for them. I actually prefer to be on a network carrier on flights of that length simply because I miss out on a ton of FF mileage if I'm on EK/EY/QR, but I have very little control over what airline I'm booked on.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

The public also won't be sympathetic when the institution of things like baggage fees was blamed on needing to offset high fuel prices, but then those fees are retained....much like a municipal tax that never goes away.......when fuel prices take a drop. And the airline is making good profits, while standard legroom and seat size goes down, and ticket prices go up.

Yeah but then you have to account for all the debt that airlines carry. It could be argued that it stays this way to continue making money and pay down debt. Doesn't Delta have something like 40 billion in debt?

 

[derg]

I'll be a co pilot a long time.

Considering the history of French nationals in two Airbus accidents, I don't think they'll have any leg to stand o.. If they try, just say don't you have something better to do? Like learn not to stall this thing? Drop the mic and go on your break. Er wait, I wouldn't go on a break with those guys

As for Emirates, and Dubai in particular, the "the help" makes up the majority of that particular Emirate. The Arab locals number fewer. Dubai relies on foreigners there. If it wasn't for foreigners, Dubai wouldn't be anything. And I don't mean just the Indian Subcontinent slave workers. I meant he high paying educated jobs there.

Trust me, even my friends that have the über-plush expat jobs (think far, far beyond anything Emirates could possibly offer) are still trying to get a double-breasted submarine commander uniform, and I'm doing my best to help them.

Here it comes.

Are you ready for it?

U'MERKA!Woooooo!​

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Trust me, even my friends that have the über-plush expat jobs (think far, far beyond anything Emirates could possibly offer) are still trying to get a double-breasted submarine commander uniform, and I'm doing my best to help them.

Here it comes.

Are you ready for it?

U'MERKA!Woooooo!​

Of course.

I don't think people are willingly turning down Delta and going overseas. Most of the overseas migration of pilots was due to things like the Eastern strike/scabs that went to places like Saudi Arabian Airlines (quite a few ~25 year USA pilots there), guys like typhoon pilot who had their career derailed at US Airways and the likes, and the 2008-2011 recession era. In almost all these times the pilots flocked overseas, the majors here weren't hiring. Most had furloughs at the time. One can't really blame them for going overseas. Now sure, the economy is great, oil is low, everyone is hiring so the trend will reverse and these pilots will come back. Not all but many will. If I was stuck at a regional here as a 8th year FO, and Emirates called, sure I'd go check that out for a few years. Why not? But today I wouldn't leave my baby bus job to be an A380 FO at Emirates. Any six figure flying job here is worth staying for rather than going overseas.

 

[mastermags]

Why has no one mentioned Jetblue's role in this yet.

 

[derg]

Why has no one mentioned Jetblue's role in this yet.

Some guy who lives the VapeLife just did.

 

[Cptnchia]

Doesn't Delta have something like 40 billion in debt?

Well, considering that the total debt accumulated during the merger was around $20 billion, and they've paid it down to around $5-7 billion, I'd say "NOPE! You're wrong."

 

[derg]

I think it's American, isn't it?

 

[NickH]

United is upping their customer service game to compete!

 

[derg]

United is upping their customer service game to compete!

Technically it's supposed to go over the coffee cup so the caramel gets nice and gooey and the cookie portion gets pliable.

And if you want to do it truly Dutch-style, it is "I shell have a SCHMOKE ant a pain-cake"

 

[NickH]

Technically it's supposed to go over the coffee cup so the caramel gets nice and gooey and the cookie portion gets pliable.

And if you want to do it truly Dutch-style, it is "I shell have a SCHMOKE ant a pain-cake"

Truly one of the finest snacks devised by humanity.