Is the Newcastle route filling the Business Class cabin? Or in yield terms are leisure travellers calling the tune? Is there scope for a mixed operation (e.g. ATH-DXB has a daily 777 and a 4 x weekly A-330)?
ATH is a straight day return for UAE(EK) crews, you could not do this at NCL as its a night stop.
Could the B772 get off RW25? UAE would not have said they would up grade to it eventually if it could not get in/out!!
A332 IFE, I believe NCL is seeing so many low density a/c due to the fleet being up graded to the ICE IFE system.