I applied back in 2005 and despite my CV being handed in personally by a CX Captain and 6 monthly updates I heard not a bean. At the time I had 4000hrs on modern glass cockpit aircraft (Airbus) and was keen to move onto bigger and better things. In the period of time from applying until January of this year I moved up to my 'bigger and better' aircraft and am very happy doing what I now do. So, when I had an invite for an interview in Jan, in London with CX,I declined due to a number of reasons, the main one being the huge pay cut I would suffer as a year 1 F/O.
The time delay didn't help in my case but I guess if they are getting short of crews then the time to interview may shorten correspondingly