Just low demand or A/C shortage?
According to the ME thread the rumour is they just had the worst first quarter result in their history. Signs of a slowing world economy, competition from their ME neighbours so perhaps over capacity starting to become an issue ? EK apparently taking the opportunity to bring forward the retirement dates of some of their older A330s and A340s.
Delta has also just announced capacity cuts for the winter.
With Turkey now unravelling and Brexit uncertainty in an already slowing economy, 2017 could be an interesting year.