Kinda, yes but it is more complex than that.

There is institutionalised discrimination against the low wage workers particularly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh & poss Sri Lanka and that is rampant throughout the Middle East - not an issue confirmed to EMirates by any stretch. Most of these people have absolutely no say on who they fly on, but frankly would get the same treatment on QR, SV, KU, EY etc etc. Totally unacceptable, but its not just EK, thats for sure. The airlines take full advantage of the fact that many of these passengers wouldn't have a clue how to argue their corner or that they wouldn't have known they had an aisle seat in the first place and can easily shift people. I have been on flights where passengers couldn't read the boarding card so you can see exactly what the airlines are doing in the region. The irony is of course that quite often when this discrimination takes place, it is a check in / gate agent from the same region / country as the person being discrimanted against!

Finally though, I have spoken to a fair few EK crews in my time and they confirm that flying to the Indian subcontinent is their least favourite job. Why? Well, the above mentioned passengers are not the reason. One is that they do say DXB - DEL and then have to do the return in the one shift. Other reasons? There were a few minor things (guess they all pile up) and one major......