I've noticed that Emirates take pride in stating just how many countries their crew are from and the number of languages they can speak collectively.

In your experiences, where are EK crew mostly sourced from?

Four countries which seem to be heavily represented are India, Keyna, UK, and Australia. I am fairly certain that almost every country in the world is now represented in EK's cabin crew.

Up until about a year ago the announcement didn't state the number of countries they came from, but listed individually which languages were spoken by the crew - the multinational aspect of the service was and is one of the marketing and selling points of the airline (and helps with recruitment!)

I think it's futile to ask where crew are "mostly" from - because as JXTC states, they are from absolutely all over the world, even from countries where EK has no service to.

There is a bit of a skew towards UK, Australian and New Zealand (not surprising, given the UK-AU traffic EK wants to capture, as well as 14 flights daily to the UK), quite a few from across the whole of the EU - with recent recruitment efforts directed towards Hungary/Romania. New recruitment to replenish SE Asia staff, e.g. Thailand is starting (I think QR and EY have been recruiting heavily in the area too) now, but I am seeing a lot of Vietnamese and Chinese GR2s. Have also met a few Burmese staff in the air and ground. South America is a little underrepresented, but I have encountered, apart from the predominately Brazilian representatives, Colombia and Paraguay. Africa seems to be mainly Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. India is also a big one (for obvious reasons).

Plus, you can always look at the flag pins to see!

Well I'm not convinced that every country in the world is represented, or even close. Not yet, at least. (Watch this space perhaps ......)

The most commonly quoted figure for the total number of countries in the world today is 196 - although that does climb to well over the 200 mark depending on the precise definition of a sovereign state (opinion varies ....). Emirates have stated in some publications that their crew are made up of 135 nationalities.

There has traditionally been a sense of great pride on the part of EK management whenever referring to the diverse range of crew background. However, whilst on the face of it, this is a positive/admirable policy, I do sometimes wonder whether a United Nations approach to recruitment has any bearing on some of the issues being discussed on a current thread re growing inconsistency in customer service standards.

I would disagree completely on India. Its a question that I have asked pursers why are Indians so few in EK's cabin crew when they have so many flights to the Indian subcontinuent. I have rarely seen Indians in EK cabin crew and sometimes there are none even on India bound flights. IME, among the Asian nationalities I see far more Korean, Filipino, Chinese, and Thai crew than I see Indians.

Just asked my better half: India, Kenya & Philippines are most crew. Lot's of UK & Australia, too.

Rarely ever get to see them. BTW, I've seen fairly large number of male crew from Pakistan. IIRC, have only seen 3 pursers of Indian origin in all my flying with EK so far, one of whom I've met twice. Same holds for pilots - only ever heard 2 commanders of Indian origin being called out, 1 on a 777 and another on a 332, never on a 388.

Quite honestly I find that EKs schedulers are quite perverse - e.g. on the Thai flights, they only have 1 Thai speaker who is usually an FG1, or on Indian flights 1 or even 0 Indian crew, etc. etc. Maybe it's stop them going home!

Have seen very, very few Indian FA's.

I seem to think (?) - based on a recent post - that w00t has a partner who works as Emirates crew, and yet that list of where "most' crew come from just doesn't seem to tally with my own EK travel experience.

I seem to notice Indian crew tend to be around the GR1 level or Pursers, but nothing in between (FG1/SFS) - indicative I think of the rolling recruitment campaigns - you can see a similar distribution in say, Thai crews, who are all FG1s or, now, GR2, but nothing in between (I recall the esteemed SFO777 mentioning he encountered a "stunning Thai FA" in one of his trip reports! ) and that chimes up to the break in recruitment they had just after the financial crisis from Asia given +3/4 years for promotion to FG1.

Likewise you see now there are quite a few Hungarian GR2s, and last year a lot of Serbian GR2s - but now you more often find Serbians as GR1s.

Just the vagaries of recruitment into a standardised promotion process. It's all rather regular but a bit non-sensical at first glance!

You only really notice is if you fly in all the cabins regularly, instead of always travelling Y, or always J, or always F.

^

That about sums it up.

I am just relaying some info from the OH and not trying to convince anyone of whay I am saying.

Like on 508 today, no Indian crew (Purser - Serbia, SFS - Czech Republic & Croatia, & rest from Korea, South Africa, Thailand....)

Last year @ BKK Westin, I recall EK or QR was there to recruit those stunning Thai ladies. Won't lie that I pretend to hang out in lobby and try to buy some time / excuses to be there .

On a serious note, my SFS from LAX-DXB F is from Argentina... DXB-BKK, stunning vietnamese lady.. I like flag pins, it's easy ice-breaker activities in F or J... have some times to chat with them. Y, of course not.. Unless brief chats in native language...

There generally aren't any SFSs working in F

Although these days, what with crew shortage, you can see any combination - I was on a Y flight the other day with 2 pursers and 2 SFS and 1 FG1 working the Y cabin!

Could some please explain the terms for different grades of FAs? Just curious.