News
Emirates parks 46 A380s and B777s?
May 4th 2018
Gulf media reported this week that Emirates Airline would park 46 A380s and B777s at Dubai’s World Central (DWC) Airport in coming months because of its forecast pilot shortage. Read More » After storing an A380 and 11 B777s in DWC in April, Emirates reportedly parked six A380s and 14 B777s at DWC in May and intends to do the same next month with three A380s and 11 B777s.
Emirates president, Tim Clark, has publicly acknowledged in recent months that the airline would face a pilot shortage in the coming summer peak season. He has since downplayed the situation with the news that 170 pilots were proceeding through the airline’s cadetship programme to address the cockpit shortfall.
In April, May and June, Emirates reduced frequencies on Dubai-Heathrow, Dubai-Bangkok and Dubai-Munich and scaled back flights to Florida from daily to five a week.
Pilots have been resigning from Emirates to take better paid jobs that also offer more flexible working conditions, most notably in Mainland China. In China, pilots can earn US$300,000 plus a year, which is significantly higher than Emirates pay rates. Also, Emirates requires all of its pilots to be based in Dubai while other carriers allow their cockpit crew to commute.
“We’ve always been aware of the ebb and flow of pilot supply. That’s why we opened our flight training school last year, so we can control our own supply of pilots instead of being at the mercy of the marketplace,” Clark told media in Hamburg recently, where he confirmed the airline was short of 100-150 flight deck crew.
