I think its about time that we got real and accepted the fact that the Middle East and Euro hubs have stolen the game from under our noses, so what do we do ?
Spend Billions on a scheme to show we are the centre of the universe or let them spend their billions on superhubs, and we use their facilities.
London is never going to be a branch line regardless of what happens, capacity can be maintained by use of A380s but where compromise has to be made is this never ending desire to have point to point from London to every point on the world.
Sorry London but you are going to have to change planes for the first time in your lives
