Don,
EK has been short pilots for 8 years. They stopped hiring for several of them. They continue to announce new flights when they don't have enough pilots for the one's they have now. If they were so worried about the EK pilots health, they wouldn't have been running 8 days off a month on the 330 guys for the last 3-4 years. No, improving conditions is too hard. Getting Dash-8 guys to apply for a wide body gig is easy. Like taking candy from a baby. Congrats to all EK captains, you have just been promoted to TRI's.
