With all this concern about lower pax no.'s for S08, then perhaps we should really be taking a step back & looking at the net progress over the past few years, rather than adding to ever increasing paranoia as to whether LS & EZY will or wont operate this or that route which seems to provide ever a greater amount of fodder for the pax no. counters out there. The bottom line is that NCL in S07 must have been operating at around 100% capacity, there have been well publicised issues with security / imigration queues and with baggage handling. The doom merchants even prophesised chaos on the checkins once EK commenced. I presume that ideal aggregate expansion is with a balanced route structure. As such longhaul appears to be in growth, scheduled routes need to be promoted & developed as much as practical & if the short term fall out is at the Loco end then so what. Just because another Loco base wherever in the UK announces a new route to MAD or where ever need not be a cause for concern as long as NCL invests in its own infrastructure to be able to cater for future expansion which will come with resource & effort directed in the right direction.
