Emirates grade II roster in year one, month by month: the Gulf turnarounds, the first long hauls, the standby blocks and how the bidding treats a new joiner
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#1 Emirates from Cairo, and I wrote the training week 2 thread. I graduated, I am four months on the line, and the second year roster thread exists but the first year does not. Here is year one, month by month so far, for the next batch.
Month one
Supernumerary flights first, then the line. The first rosters are what the bidding leaves: the Gulf turnarounds (Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait, Muscat, Bahrain, Doha when it flies) at the hours nobody wants, a few of the India and Pakistan sectors, a lot of standby. My first month: 68 block hours, two layovers (Mumbai and Kuwait), six standby days of which two were called, nine days off. The accommodation and the batch are the social life, as the month four thread says.
Month two
The first real long haul: a Manchester, a 777, a 24 hour layover in the rain, the first time the batch group chat went quiet because everyone was in a different time zone. Then more Gulf, a Karachi, a Colombo. 74 hours, three layovers, five standby.
Month three
The bidding opens for the new joiners in a limited way (preferences, not bids, for the first months) and I put London and Cairo. Got neither. Got Nairobi, which was lovely, and a Dhaka, which was an education. The standby blocks got shorter. 80 hours, four layovers.
Month four
The month four the threads warned about, and the warning worked: I knew it was month four and I rested in the Egyptian community and did the gym. The roster: a Cairo (the family at the airport), a Frankfurt, a Bangkok, and the Gulf. 82 hours, four layovers, three standby days, ten days off. The best month so far on the roster and the hardest in the head, exactly as predicted.
What the bidding does for a new joiner
The preferences are considered after the senior crew's bids and the result is that the new joiner gets the long hauls the seniors did not want (which are often the ones I wanted, because I wanted anything) and the Gulf turnarounds the seniors avoid. By month six, the crew say, the preferences start landing. The Cairo route, which every Egyptian wants, is competitive and the seniors hold it; the month four Cairo was luck.
The standby reality
Three to six standby days a month in year one, the callouts at 4am for the Riyadh, the uncalled days that pay the standby rate and nothing more. Tomasz's winter thread is about Wizz and it applies here: the uncalled standby is the pay cut in a Gulf year one too.
For the next batch
Expect the Gulf at 2am. Want anything, because you will get the anything. Know month four. Put the home route in the preferences every month and get it once a year. And write the roster down each month, because by month six you will want to see the shape of the year.
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#2 Emirates, and 'I knew it was month four and I rested in the community' is the thread working. The roster shape is exactly year one: the Gulf at 2am, the long hauls the seniors did not want, the preferences landing at month six. Yasmine has written it live.
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#3 Grade I now, and my year one roster was the same with Newcastle instead of Cairo as the impossible home route. The seniors hold it. The once a year is the luck. Write it down, as she says; the shape of the year is the thing that makes year two make sense.
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#4 EgyptAir, and the Cairo route being held by the seniors at Emirates is the thing the Egyptian applicants should know: the commute home is the staff travel, not the roster. The month four Cairo was a gift.
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#5 Three batches ahead, and the Dhaka in month three is the education every new joiner gets once. Nairobi is the reward. The Gulf at 2am is the tax. Year one in three sentences.
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#6 Emirates, one batch behind, and I am in month two reading month four from someone one batch ahead. The warning chain works. Manchester in the rain was my first long haul too.
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#7 Emirates, just arrived, week one, and the month by month from an Egyptian four months ahead is the roster I will measure mine against. The Mumbai layover in month one will be the family at the airport for me, as the Cairo was for you.
