Long Haul expansion
ThreeAlpha - as someone who has worked as a Business Analyst in the Airline industry for a number of years I have to agree with alot of the details in your post.
I don't see the arrival of Emirates as evidence that NCL is about to see a long haul boom. As things stand at present NCL has a few gaps in its destinations but the majority of these are short haul routes. The one main long haul destination that NCL has not got and should have is a regular sheduled servie to New York. However given the high profile pull out of American Airlines last year it will be a few years before we see another US legacy carrier (Delta or Continental) showing an interest in NCL. Open Skies does not help Newcastle ambitions to get a New York link either as any spare capacity is going to head the way of the likes of London, Paris, Madrid etc.
As has been said before Newcastles best chance of a New York link may well lie with a low cost operator eg Zoom or Jet2 . Other than this destination though I can't see any other long haul desitination working