Originally Posted by
mattyroo
I find the crew generally pretty uninterested in the comfort/needs of passengers. Most of them seem to be low-wage Eastern European crew who really don't give a damn. To me, it seems they're there for the "glamour" of being Emirates crew, nothing more.
The seats on EK 380 leave a lot to be desired in comparison to SQ, and I personally prefer EY, CX and NZ seats, which some others don't. Especially the Mk I EK 380.
I think it's more the tax free salary of 30k USD and travel perks, rather than glamour per se
I don't think it's entirely fair to point to wages and geographic origin for crew problems, considering EY has the same recruiting pool as EK, and CX and SQ pay quite a bit less than EK, even before you take into account the fact that EK crew pretty much have only one monthly expense, which is a mobile phone contract. I think the problem with crew service, especially on A380s, is the working environment and the corporate culture - you have 76 J seats with a badly designed from the perspective of staff cabin interior and you also have all the drama of working for EK.
I agree with you regarding the product - the EK J product is average compared to what's out there, both in hard and soft product. I think it's definitely the weakest part of the offering. I suppose in order to offer the fares they do in Y and F, they need to pack the J cabins on all their aircraft and the rest of the product certainly suffers because of that.