What are the Emirates staff travel benefits?
The travel benefits are as follows as of the time of writing (March 2017).
1, 1 annual leave ticket (confirmed) – completely free – for self, spouse and children. First 3 years of service, ticket for declared hometown. Post that, free ticket for any Emirates destination. For some senior grades, freely upgraded to next class, if available and if travel party does not have a child below 13 years.
2, Unlimited ID90 tickets (subject to load i.e. flight not being full) – for self, spouse and children. You pay full taxes and 10% of the standard IATA fare (which is higher than the market fare). Overall, works out to be around 30% of total fare (base + taxes) found in the open market, as a thumb rule.
3, Unlimited ID50 tickets (confirmed) – for self, spouse and children. You pay full taxes and 50% of the standard IATA fare (which is higher than the market fare).
4, 1 SRC ticket (per year of continuous service after the first 3 years). This is subject to load and you pay only taxes, 0% on the base fare. Can be transferred to any passenger you wish.
5, 1 additional confirmed SRC per year of continuous service over X years (don’t recall how many years).
6, If you quit/retire after more than 15 years of continuous service, you get 1 subject to load and 1 confirmed SRC per year for life.
7, 2 subject to load ID90 tickets per year for your maid (above certain grade).
8, 2 subject to load ID90 and 2 confirmed ID50 for each of your parents, parents-in-law and siblings per year.
9, 10 special tickets every year, which can be given to any other friend/relatives not listed above. These are confirmed buddy tickets, that are slightly cheaper than the market (maybe 10% discount), but are inventory controlled tightly. So you won’t find availability for most popular routes on popular travel periods.
NOTE:
These are only available for full time permanent staff. Not for temporary, contractual or consulting staff. The benefits seem attractive on paper, but if you have a family with kids and can travel only during school holidays (peak travel periods), then the subject to load tickets are usually useless, as Emirates flights usually go completely full.
The confirmed annual leave tickets are good. If you have kids though, you have to sacrifice the free upgrade to business class. The ID50 tickets and buddy tickets are pretty useless if most of your travel is to/from the Indian subcontinent or other popular destinations as these tickets are strictly inventory controlled based on forecast demand.
Thanks – Pushan Sengupta, former Customer Insights Manager at Emirates Airlines.
