I’ve asked a few maintenance engineers which Airbus A330 hulls they are decommissioning and all of them I spoke with said none whatsoever. I think the A330 will hang around to stink up the joint for another 5 to 7 years until the A350 takes over as the India Express doing those coveted 3:30am turnarounds.
As for upgrade on the shortbus, I heard 8 of 8 failed upgrade in the last batch. All failed in the sim so it doesn’t even count all the guys who were not even allowed to try because they didn’t make it through the upgrade interview & psych eval.
On top of that, I heard the A380 will have some sort of special command review board or some such thing, so I doubt the “lucky” FOs who go to the squarebus will have any better odds of getting that 4th stripe. My guess is the senior 777 skippers will transfer into the left seat of the blunderbus and leave most of the 380 FOs stuck in the right seat or maybe back for a shot at the left seat on the shortbus.
In my opinion, taking an A330 new hire slot is a really bad idea. Just tell Recruiting no, you’ll wait for a 777 class. Boeing & Airbus main fleets at Emirates are like 2 completely different airlines.