forum newbie, applicants always had to pay their own way to interviews with EK until a (very) few years ago when the applicants, to put it simply, stopped applying.
Now that there's a glut of pilots on the market again, they've very quickly reverted to their old system of never spending a Dirham that doesn't need to be spent. At the risk of causing enormous offence to some, I'd say the second interview requirement is mute testimony to the fact that with the current glut of applicants in the market, EK has also been able to revert to interviewing applicants with the experience levels they traditionally took until a very few years ago.
It's an indisputable fact that over the last few years, thanks to the then dearth of suitably experienced pilots on the market, EK was forced to take on pilots - both FOs and DECs - who before then wouldn't have even been picked for an initial interview.
I'm not discussing ability here, but simply previous experience.
The big question is - with the new 'lean and mean/slash and burn' approach to pilots that the EK mnagement has adopted over the last 12 months, even in the current terrible worldwide economic situation, whether they'll be able to attract sufficient numbers of those more experienced pilots? My guess is that they will, because despite all the warnings from those already slaving at the coalface, pilots looking for a job traditionally hear only what they want hear and don't start bitching until after they've got their own feet firmly placed under the table.