http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...claims-411089/

The US government to review Gulf subsidy claims.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/201...htm?goMobile=0

More info about the website in this press release from the State Department.

Will they review the billions in subsidies given to US airlines too?

http://www.flyertalk.com/story/wikil...-subsides.html

EK has a problem with crew. A lot of them just did quit their job. Pilots/FA are not happy because the cost of living in Dubai are dramatically increasing. The accommodation is not as luxurious as before.

This is a topic EK is changing. They have to be competitive for the crews and to get more staff. One thing is paid maternity leave which will change soon.

There is a rumor that EK is going to park 2 A380 because of cockpit crew shortage.

Disclaimer: Not an expert :-)

Some of the crew issues are being discussed in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emira...rules-hvc.html

so I think it's best to avoid those discussions here unless it pertains to the original question - so for the purposes of this thread I think we can conclude that if EK was an airline that had unlimited government support, they would have no problems with staffing, as historically, companies that needed subsidies or bailouts to survive had structural overstaffing/labour cost problems that were politically difficult to solve economically - and in the case of EK being a government entity, very easily sort out things like living standards / accommodations / cost of living allowances.

Under-staffing and not paying skilled staff enough to lead to labour troubles: well, I think that is a charge levelled usually against ruthless publicly traded, for-profit enterprises!

http://skift.com/2015/04/09/wikileak...-in-subsidies/

Wikileaks you disclosed shows US airlines received billions in subsidies.

Sounds like a conclusion from the Weather Channel intern and is about as astonishing as the statement that girls from rural China or Eastern Bulgaria have the time of their life in Dubai.

So I would love to read some expert opinions for the real reason for parking two A380...

I really hope it is not overcapacity. :D:D:D

We all know that..., but on a more serious note and as mentioned earlier, a low yield airline that faces increasing costs, so called legacy costs, has all kinds of problems, not only on the political front trying to defend billions of subsidies.

I also mentioned the shockingly low experience of EK crew not to mention the desperate attempt of Anti to revoke his job offers for OS pilots some years ago. Dubai might work for the Tyrolean CRJ FO or for the Tarom IL62 pilot, but as you have pointed out, is not really that attractive for many people from the first (aviation) world.

On the other hand, if you do not have the traffic rights anyway, you do not need the aircraft or crew to fly them, so it is all good in the end and Dubai can concentrate on building a new Metro line. Let's hope they do not have to buy it from Siemens or Bombardier :p

We did not really need Wikileaks for that kind of information, the average Weather Channel intern from Notre Dame knows all about that. @:-)

A lot of the Scandinavian, Dutch and German crew members working for EK have had a good time in Dubai when working there, when working out of there, and also when away from Dubai on leave. Apparently it's not just the Asian and Eastern European crew members, as much as the prejudiced may want to make it seem.

How many TWC interns from Notre Dame do you know? A sample set of one doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, so how many do you know? ;)

I'm not surprised that there MIGHT be crew staffing issues at Emirates. I mean, there's no history of any int'l airline ever growing this fast so it would also be expected that such problems would develop. Especially when that airline is almost entirely dependent on foreign nationals to manage these issues.

BTW, staffing problems aren't entirely solvable with "money." They require management talent. I do not believe there's as much airline management talent in the UAE as there is elsewhere in the world. Nor should one expect there to be. Just as you wouldn't expect there to be as much oil drilling expertise in Japan as there is in West Texas. It is also obviously more difficult to manage an expat work force than a domestic workforce.

That said, this is not the issue of this thread. The issue is whether these airlines are massively subsidized by their governments and whether the rest of the world -- particularly the USA -- will continue to allow this unfair competition. With the USA government announcing on Friday that there are taking the allegations very seriously, I believe the Gulf airlines will soon have a much bigger problem than staffing issues.

I agree with you on all points here (although the Gulf airlines do try their best to parachute in foreign talent, to varying degrees of success at upper management levels) and indeed did mention in that post the staff issues are best discussed in another thread as it isn't really directly relevant to the operational profitability of EK - although I think that the Gulf airlines problems (or at least EK more than EY and QR) are going to be more of a political and public relations issue rather than a serious threat to their business model considering that Americas revenue and I would say margin is quite small: all it does is constraint future growth, unless EU regulators take action.

This is of course, some time down the road, so I suspect there will be ample time for lobbying on all sides!

Without straying too far into the quasi-nationalist thinking that pervades some parts of the aviation industry, my anecdotal experience with EK is that most of the flight crew are all from the UK, US, Western continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa...

I think my experience will be echoed by other frequent travellers on EK - the pilots do indeed seem to be from the "first" (aviation) world. Although I don't have solid statistics on crew nationalities.

As for cabin crew nationalities - by singling out rural China and Eastern Europeans specifically with no context leads me to believe the implication is that they are poor and uneducated and are taken in by the dazzle of Dubai and the glamorous lifestyle (and perhaps do not know better). I find that implication distasteful and inaccurate and I think GUWonder has adequately addressed that point. I would also add that I think that nationality has nothing to do with how much cabin crew enjoy (or at least initially) working for EK but more to do with the demographics of their source labour markets: 22-23 year olds, fresh out of university - their first job is one in which they get to travel the world, meet lots of new people and earn 35k USD tax free? Even in the wealthiest countries in the world - at least, the wealthiest ones in the "first" world :D , 35k USD at age 22 is quite significantly above the average wage, especially for a job that requires relatively few qualifications compared to say, professional services.

As to the level of crew training - well, I think the last few years have taught us that flight crew are the ones we should watch out for, and that even paragons of aviation regulation can't catch every issue...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-rebuk...ght-1428094581

However unpalatable it may seem, the thread is about operational profitability now, not about safety standards - and to suggest that EK makes profits improperly because they hire under-experienced staff (and by implication cheaper) is I think a bit of a red herring.

For this to be a valid argument you would also have to buy into the notion that all airlines globally must have training requirements equal to the most stringent and costly operators in the world - not simply to satisfy local regulators as well as the regulators of the jurisdictions to which an airline flies but to go beyond that - which alludes to the idea that airlines "should" have a pre-determined cost structure (presumably based on the cost structures of airlines based in countries where the proponents of these ideas are based or wherever they have some sort of jingoistic affinity) and that any variation from this cost structure is immoral or unfair.

After all, if these operators were deemed to be unsafe, they would simply be banned from flying to and from the EU and the US - which operate stringent air safety regimes and demand it of all operators in their airspace. It is simply a fact that you can meet all the air safety requirements demanded by regulators but at a lower cost than historically it may have been. Lower cost and lower experienced crews (how are we measuring this? Flight hours? For cabin crew what do we even mean by this? Number of accidents a crew member has been involved in?) does not imply unsafe - at least not unsafe enough to get banned/warned.

It is not really within the realms of reason to suggest that EK has two fleets, one which doesn't meet EASA/FAA standards and one that does, in an attempt to cut costs...which is just going to increase costs anyway...

One of my female graduates decided a few years ago to join one of the ME3 (not sure which but not emirates) with the intention of doing a couple of years max (she saw it as being paid for a gap year before she got a more permanent carerr). Five years later she's been promoted several times and is still enjoying it. She's a bright girl with a good degree. I've also met British cabin crew on emirates who are doing masters degrees part time. The assumption of being poor and uneducated doesn't chime with my experience.

I totally agree with you - in my encounter with customer facing staff I haven't met any who had had a bad education (at least by global standards). As for poor: I don't think one could make a judgement about simply by meeting someone in the course of their work! For instance, I did meet the daughter of a wealthy Egyptian industrialist who had joined EK a few months back (back when I met her) and was enjoying being a G2 as she got to escape and see the world. I would hardly call her poor or uneducated!

However, even by the standards of this thread, I think we are going a bit off-topic now :D