I was driving two days ago around 1800 and heard on the news (92.0FM): "Emirates Airline will start hiring Captains instead of upgrading First officers from within the company" (or something among those lines) followed by some words of Katherine Ferguson saying that the reason is because of the slow down in hires during the 2008 crisis bla bla bla.
I wonder how come this is news for anyone that is not in EK, or maybe a secret message to all of the UAE skippers? lol.
Happy trails