To answer some of the questions regarding upgrade.
I’ve passed interviews for both EK and FZ. Recruitment team in FZ has been super honest. An experienced FO ( in my case, B737 Cpt & tri ) joining right now can hope for an upgrade in 3 years, at best. As it has been mentioned before in the thread, they have a lot of experienced Fo ready to upgrade.
I chose EK for the long term. Good luck !