EK in the UK
The CAA provisional stats for December show: -
BHX 33095 Avg 267 or 76% load factor
GLA 20251 Avg 327 or 75% load factor
MAN 42210 Avg 340 or 79% load factor
NCL 11401 Avg 184 or 66% load factor
If you take these at face value, you would have to say that no expansion is on the cards for these airports as there are nearly 100 spare seats on every flight.
However as ever these figures do not tell the whole story as I know from BHX with the A332 on EK38. This flight often goes out full due to the connecting pax to Australia and I am sure that EK would not want to turn pax away but the connection time on the earlier EK40 is ridiculously long and thus rumour that an upgrade is being looked at.
Also of course if business is selling out frequently on any of these services it would also pose another problem for EK.
However there are so many airports around the globe (if you believe what you read/hear) trying to get one EK service it is going to be a difficult juggling act to keep every one happy and service the demand.
Once the 380's start getting delivered it will free up some aircraft but even then three 772's are supposed to be leaving the fleet this year.
Pete