Wow: Emirates Pays Employees 22-Week Salary Bonus

As I wrote about earlier, Emirates Airline reported a record $6.2 billion profit for the past financial year, making it the most profitable airline in the world. The company is celebrating this by rewarding employees in a pretty incredible way, which puts profit sharing at other airlines to shame…

120,000+ Emirates employees get huge bonuses

Emirates has historically offered profit sharing to employees when the airline has a good year. However, there’s no consistent formula to this, and it’s at the discretion of the company’s executives. With the airline having done so well the past financial year, employees are being rewarded in a generous way.

The Dubai-based airline has announced that all employees of the company will be getting a bonus equal to 22 weeks worth of basic salary. Yes, that means all Emirates employees will be getting a roughly 42% bonus on their basic salaries. It’s worth emphasizing that basic salaries aren’t necessarily equal to the total pay, as many flight crews have both basic pay plus an hourly pay.

So, how does this latest profit sharing amount compare to past amounts? Historically when Emirates has performed well, the airline has offered employees bonuses equal to several weeks worth of salary:

• For the 2017-2018 financial year, employees received bonuses equal to five weeks worth of salary
• The airline then didn’t do so well for several years (first due to a challenging environment, then due to the pandemic), so there weren’t bonuses
• For the 2022-2023 financial year, employees received bonuses equal to 24 weeks worth of salary, to reflect that it had been years since they were rewarded in this way
• For the 2023-2024 financial year, employees received bonuses equal to 20 weeks worth of salary, to reflect record financial results

It’s exceptionally rare to see airlines give out such large bonuses as part of a profit sharing perk. Here in the United States, Delta has a formula for its profit sharing, and for the past year, Delta’s profit sharing was equal to 10% of pay. The only airline that has beat Emirates is Singapore Airlines, which offered its employees a 32-week salary bonus last year.

This is really great to see from Emirates

Gulf carriers are often vilified for their employment practices. While I think some criticisms are warranted, Emirates usually does a pretty job taking care of employees, and this is a clear reflection of that. Even without a union or collective bargaining agreement, it’s possible for a company to be generous with staff.

For three years in a row now, Emirates employees have received profit sharing equal to nearly 50% of their salary. I’m sure this will do a lot to help morale at the airline, and to ensure employees are invested in the continued success of the airline.

So many Emirates employees live in Dubai, while their families are back home in the country they’re originally from. Often the Emirates staff are bread winners for their whole family, so getting this kind of a bonus will make a material difference in their lives.

Bottom line

Emirates reported a record profit of $6.2 billion, and the airline is celebrating that by offering employees profit sharing that’s equal to 22 weeks of salary. What an awesome way to recognize employees, especially since this is the third year in a row of such big bonuses.

What do you make of Emirates’ massive bonus for employees?