WK
I'm sure you can agree with me that EK of all airlines would save a LOT of money by having SOs for their long haul flights than an all FO and Capt. crew. Surely there must be a good reason why they don't have them already, than just "they don't want them". I am not having a go or anything at you WK, just curious since it would drastically benefit EK financialy.
MC
Well. I'll put it this way. Last year was a 'bad' year financially at EK; making only $500 million odd profit (can't remember the exact figure), so saving by having cheaper SOs would be literally a drop in the ocean!
Besides - would you really want to be a 1,000hr SO while a cadet with 500 hours outranks you????
And to clarify -
they really "just don't want them" is from the top