Having worked for both airlines I would have to disagree with that. EK through their years of sports sponsorship have become a world renowned brand - EY are unknown outside of aviation. Abu Dhabi has pumped Billions into EY to try and replicate the brand success at EK but totally failed. So if a merger is on the cards (and I can see the issues with local egos) then it will because it is a last throw of the dice and even Abu Dhabi are not going to throw away even more money on a failed enterprise.
Emirates is after all what Abu Dhabi and Dubai are both part of - it's not as though EK is called Fly Dubai...
