I have heard that the failure rate is now 50% as opposed to the historical average of 40%, which might not set off alarm bells unless you consider the following.......
Our recruiting department is obviously under pressure to 'find' and then accept suitable applicants. So as a normal human being in such a position, you would be more inclined to accept someone boardering on acceptability, than say 7 years ago.
My point being, that the decline from 50% to 40% of acceptable applicants, which not not seem so bad, is not a true reflections of what is actually happening. There is no doubt in my mind that EK is accepting some applicants who in the past would have been punted out the door.
We probably won't see the results of this decline for a few years but we just went thru a period of a massive increase in UNsuccessful Capt upgrades, which coincided with the last time frame that EK was unable to attract the most desirable candidates.
Unfortunately, the next phase will occur exactly when many local pilots are elligible for upgrade too. I fear the scales have been tipped too far.