Emirates Lavishes Employees With Massive Profit-Sharing Bonus

With record profit comes record profit sharing for Emirates employees, a move that is certain to improve morale and cement loyalty at the Dubai-based airline.

Emirates Offers Employees Unprecedented Profit-Sharing Bonus

It has been a rough few years for Emirates and the airline industry, but with a return to profit Emirates is sharing some of the pie with an unprecedented profit-sharing payment to its more than 100,000 employees.

Last week Emirates reported a profit of $2.9 billion for the previous fiscal year. In the past, Emirates has offered a profit-sharing to employees at its own discretion. The last such occurrence was in 2018. But with record profit in 2022, Emirates has announced every employee will receive the equivalence of 24 weeks of basic pay. That’s right, it is like boosting up your salary by 50%…all with the sweep of a pen.

As an added bonus, income is tax-free in Dubai.

Here in the USA, Delta Air Lines is most generous when it comes to profit-sharing. It pledges to employees 10% of its first $2.5 billion in annual profits then 20% of annual profits beyond that.

Emirates Gets It.

There’s an interesting dynamic at play here.

As a consumer, I could gripe that Emirates is taking profit that should be used to invest in its woefully outdated product (amazingly, most business class seats on the 777 are not lie-flat). Stockholders (the Dubai government) might lament that it was not rewarded with a generous dividend for weathering out the pandemic itself.

But Emirates’ identity and mystique is rooted in its employees. You will never hear “we are primality here for your safety” from an Emirates flight attendant. That’s not the Emirates model. But more than robotic Barbie dolls, flight attendants at Emirates provide the sort of well-executed, polished service that makes so many flyers loyal (and to be clear, there are some bad apples who work for Emirates as well).

Thus, taking care of employees (and ground staff too, which makes the whole operation run) can be seen as the sort of investment in human capital that will lead to more profits down the line. People are willing to pay a premium for Emirates because they know they can expect warm, caring, and compassionate service onboard.

CONCLUSION

Emirates employees are in for a huge treat; the equivalent of a 50% bump in base pay. After a profitable year, Emirates is sharing the wealth and employees will be the beneficiaries after years of no bonuses or pay raises. I’m excited for Emirates employees today and appreciate the business class for this lavish bonus.

image: Emirates // H/T: One Mile At A Time