Without straying too far into the quasi-nationalist thinking that pervades some parts of the aviation industry, my anecdotal experience with EK is that most of the flight crew are all from the UK, US, Western continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa...

I think my experience will be echoed by other frequent travellers on EK - the pilots do indeed seem to be from the "first" (aviation) world. Although I don't have solid statistics on crew nationalities.

As for cabin crew nationalities - by singling out rural China and Eastern Europeans specifically with no context leads me to believe the implication is that they are poor and uneducated and are taken in by the dazzle of Dubai and the glamorous lifestyle (and perhaps do not know better). I find that implication distasteful and inaccurate and I think GUWonder has adequately addressed that point. I would also add that I think that nationality has nothing to do with how much cabin crew enjoy (or at least initially) working for EK but more to do with the demographics of their source labour markets: 22-23 year olds, fresh out of university - their first job is one in which they get to travel the world, meet lots of new people and earn 35k USD tax free? Even in the wealthiest countries in the world - at least, the wealthiest ones in the "first" world , 35k USD at age 22 is quite significantly above the average wage, especially for a job that requires relatively few qualifications compared to say, professional services.

As to the level of crew training - well, I think the last few years have taught us that flight crew are the ones we should watch out for, and that even paragons of aviation regulation can't catch every issue...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-rebuk...ght-1428094581

However unpalatable it may seem, the thread is about operational profitability now, not about safety standards - and to suggest that EK makes profits improperly because they hire under-experienced staff (and by implication cheaper) is I think a bit of a red herring.

For this to be a valid argument you would also have to buy into the notion that all airlines globally must have training requirements equal to the most stringent and costly operators in the world - not simply to satisfy local regulators as well as the regulators of the jurisdictions to which an airline flies but to go beyond that - which alludes to the idea that airlines "should" have a pre-determined cost structure (presumably based on the cost structures of airlines based in countries where the proponents of these ideas are based or wherever they have some sort of jingoistic affinity) and that any variation from this cost structure is immoral or unfair.

After all, if these operators were deemed to be unsafe, they would simply be banned from flying to and from the EU and the US - which operate stringent air safety regimes and demand it of all operators in their airspace. It is simply a fact that you can meet all the air safety requirements demanded by regulators but at a lower cost than historically it may have been. Lower cost and lower experienced crews (how are we measuring this? Flight hours? For cabin crew what do we even mean by this? Number of accidents a crew member has been involved in?) does not imply unsafe - at least not unsafe enough to get banned/warned.

It is not really within the realms of reason to suggest that EK has two fleets, one which doesn't meet EASA/FAA standards and one that does, in an attempt to cut costs...which is just going to increase costs anyway...