>>Air Bubba, its called irony, you may not be familiar with it down at the scissor sharpening meetings!<<
>>Its amazingly easy to slag people off, don't you think!!<<
You seem to be demonstrating that point with your post...
No need for an inferiority complex just because some of us are Americans.
Many of the worldwide trends in procedures, training and operations, good and bad, do come from the U.S. as you point out. In recent years we've seen such originally American concepts as locked cockpit doors, drug and alcohol testing, no smoking on the aircraft and keeping granny off the jumpseat vigorously debated here on PPRuNe.
The EK crew was likely following company procedure by going into holding, they probably needed approval from ops to divert for a fire warning and agent discharge.
You are certainly right that a rushed decision could have been the wrong one, that is why it is healthy to discuss the issues here. No criticism of the crew is intended by anyone from what I can see.