It is certainly logical and good practise to go for big 'return of investment'. EK did a decent job in that respect, at least when it came down to invest into infrastructure, branding and equipment. One can discuss if they went somewhat wrong for the latter, but their real gross error was that, once on the success path, they no longer invested into their productive employees the last 10 years. The devested heavily there. Too heavily, because their main problem now is a return of devestment. No adequately qualified people want to join, the party roars somewhere else.
It is like a country that forgot to renew its infrastructure for too long. The cost to get even will always be huge and goes to the detriment of profit, or to the taxpayer (VAT). It takes easily double the amount of money anyone thought they'd save and takes an exponential amount of time.
The system in Dubai was never set up for full amplitudes, in their arrogance they thought that only the top of the x-axis would apply to them. Any remedy to the position they are in now would imply some sort of re-investment into productive employees (renumeration, conditions and number) as to fully get back a return of investment of the still pretty good infrastructure and equipment. At the same time a devestment of the non-productive part in management, the bouncy castle and especially in the abysmally bad IT department has to be implemented.
My guess is: 'Not going to happen'! No pay increase, no better rosters, no profit share, no increase in numbers.
Go to the bouncy castle and you will see how Costa has filled up again, especially with full white and full black dresses, almost to pre-Müller times. EK is doomed due to cultural inaptitudes.