Jet99
You're talking crap. The DEC course is no where near as difficult as an upgrade course. The LOS's for the DEC's are scripted, why, because if they we're you would have a very high failure rate.
You cannot compare the two courses and interviews. EK has two different systems and what's scary is that some DEC's have never done LOS or LOE. I believe that both should be treated equally but such is not the case.
I do however have no sympathy for someone who fails his command interview, they believe they should be given it. For an SFI to fail, I'm not surprised, he thinks he knows how to do certain exercises in the sim HOWEVER someone like him should be flying the line and getting experience to become a captain, he created this himself.
Like I said before, EK has not recruited the same sort of experience over the last 3 years. Before that we had 744, 738 and 777 joining, after that is was commuters from the states or charter outfits (UK Charter Co are an exception) - no offense, but the fact is that there just isn't any experience, commonsense and initiative there. May this be a lesson to all who think they are to be given a command, pull your finger OUT do some work and you'll get what you deserve.