An article suggesting Emirates may be looking at NCL:
Interesting that our profile is increasing, despite any condescending tone in the article.
Keeping NCL in high profile is half the battle, and i'm sure that indirectly AA have done us a major favour in drawing our attention to those "East of Suez".
I've direct experience of the boom in development in Dubai & their total commitment to promote tourism, backed up by the ongoing massive expansion of the EX fleet & new terminal at DXB, makes it an absolute necessity that they identify new markets to bring in the punters.
There is of course the possibly even more lucrative benefit that such a route would open up the whole Far East & Australia market to NE England via DXB hub.
When considering flight times & accessibility then TFS probably provides a good benchmark, probably anadditional hour ? on a DXB route, with slick marketing EX should have no problem with load factors from tourists alone, giving them a certain amount of flexibility in their fares & would probably generate a serious amount of business and through traffic.
My view is that it is a "no brainer" that NCL will have a direct route to the Gulf within two years. The subjectivity comes from which destination & airline, after all who would have gone for AA over CO when this was first discussed.
EX is the obvious choice if only for their current UK experience & expansion plans, but there are other arilines who could potentially "steal their thunder", though my view is that currently EX would have the best chance of building up such a route.