A380 crewing and the rest...
I can confirm that only about 25% of A380 F/O's will come from inside the company, all the rest will come from outside direct on the A380. Reason for that is economical. If you would upgrade an existing F/O to A380, it would only be for a year or so before that F/O can get a command on the A330... at least that's the reasoning of management.
Why not finally start with a decent career plan?
For example...
2 groups:
1a A330 / A340-300
1b A340 - 500/600
1c A380
2a B777
2b B777 ER/LR
Because of logistical and economical reasons, people can only swap groups (so from Airbus to Boeing or Vica Versa) after 5 years or so.. Swapping between the subdivisions in the Airbus group is possible after 2 years in that subdivision. Entry level for airbus would be A330, all swaps based on seniority.
When places would be available on a certain aircraft, a job vacation wuold be sent via email, and people who meet the criteria can bid for the seat.
Upgrades are exempted from the 5 years in the same group, so transition upgrades are possible, but are not exempted from the 2 years minimum on a subdivision, so if a F/O wants his rating A380, that's ok, as long as he understands that he will be stuck as an F/O for at least 2 years on the fleet.
This is a very basic idea, you would need some fine tuning of course, and it would be a very fair system, where people can actually choose the fleet they want to fly, do their time on it, and if yhey want a change afterwards, they can do it... Would suit changes in family life where people prefer medium or long haul (by choosing the appropriate subdivision)
If a job vacation lacks suitable candidates, EK can put direct entry candidates on it, it would not botter anyone, since no one bidded for that seat anyhow.
This policy could work for Captains straight away. On F/O side, as long as time to command is around three years, there should be some additional rules, but once whe start speaking of commands in 5 years, which won't be to far away anymore for the newjoiners (not because of that stupid rule of 3 years to command, but basic maths), then the same rules could apply for both F/O's and Captains.
As I said, this is just a very basic thought that just sprung to mind, needs a lot of finetuning, so shoot...
MR8