Fartmaster,
If you have a look at the upgrade program for the airbus guys, you'll see that end of 2008 upgrades are planned for guys who will have been here (at the time of their upgrade) for just over 3 years again. Reason is that EK only hired 2 airbus F/O's for about 8 months between october 2004 and may 2005. And afterwards the hiring on AB went rather slow while the upgrades will go by around 16 (1 group of 4 per week) per month end of 2008.
MR8