The sense of entitlement & arrogance that some of the obviously aggrieved F/O's have displayed in their posts is astounding! You would think that they are some sort of aviation royalty!
Nobody is entitled to a command. All anyone is entitled to is the chance to attempt the upgrade, once they meet the individual airline's criteria. And there is no evidence that the EK decision to, once again, take DEC's is going to deny anyone that chance. In fact, there seems to be evidence that the opposite is true.
Ek appears to be taking DEC's only because there are not enough F/O's who meet the upgrade requirements & a significant number of those who do have failed some stage of the interview or training.
I find it interesting that some posters here have been at pains to assert that the flying that EK does is too demanding for narrow body DEC's to handle yet, almost in the same breath, espouse the lowering of the upgrade criteria in order to make greater numbers of current EK F/O's eligible for the upgrade. Do they think that sitting in the right seat for a few short years, experiencing the various routes that EK flies on, make them more competent to command an EK flight than a fresh narrow body DEC? EK obviously doesn't think so, or they would give their DEC's more route training than they give the intake F/O's.
I must say that the elitist rhetoric about how it is such a big step from a narrow body to a wide body is starting to wear a little thin. It is arguable that a WB is actually easier to operate than a NB. Any reasonably competent pilot can make the transition without a lot of difficulty. Perhaps they are just trying to convince themselves that they are superior because they have a WB endorsement on the license.
I joined EK as a DEC off a narrow body aircraft, with very little international experience. While I had to put the hard work & preparation in, I found the transition no more difficult than my initial command upgrade training. I find the "F/O babysitting the DEC" comments offensive & delusional, to say the least. I have had to 'babysit' dozens more F/O's over my time here at EK than have ever babysat me.
F/O's who -
- think it is OK to bust STAR altitude constraints by 200 - 300 feet,
- think an ATC speed instruction is advisory, not mandatory,
- think that, despite having alternate fuel in the tanks, it is acceptable to hold at DESDI until minimum fuel for DXB, declare an emergancy & then continue to DXB,
- don't know how long INTER & TEMPO last for,
- don't know what BECMG means & how it is applied,
- don't look at the validity times of a notam & wade through a long & totally irrelevant one, only to miss the next one, which is relevant,
- who don't look at the weather & notams for all the ETOPS airports before finishing the briefing,
- don't listen to the radio & have very little situational awareness regarding what is happening around them,
- call 'positive climb' when the main gear are still on the runway,
- make a suggestion & when you tell them no & why, just go ahead & do it anyway,
- perform the 'MCP finger ballet' on approach because they have very little idea of what they need to achieve with the aircraft & have no idea on how to achieve it,
- call on a frequency over & over again when they are too far away to get a response, stepping on everyone else in the process, & then make disparaging remarks when they hear someone else do the same thing 10 minutes later,
- loudly make an SOP callout while ATC are transmitting to you, because they have no idea of priorities.
I could go on.
If you guys spent just a fraction of the time & energy on doing your current job well, as you spend on denigrating DEC's & going on about what you feel you are entitled to, you would probably have a much smoother transition when your upgrade eventually comes along.