skipness
re EK dominating, that is now a fact of life and its not just a UK thing, they are thought to be responsible for damaging the Kangaroo route and openly poach passengers wherever they can get away with it. The DXB EK hub is a great big black hole that needs feeding passengers 3 or 4 times a day.
I accept that legacy carriers are going to find it really hard to take them on with new routes but I actually don't really mind because I have access to the world (east at least) via a wonderful airport which is halfway to most destinations. As previously mentioned it doesn't matter that they are fuelled by Arab oil money because the investment floods into the UK on the back of the operation.
Us northerners don't mind hubing because we have been forced to do it for many years by our so called national carrier conspiring with codeshare partners and travel agents to funnel passengers through LHR.
Judging by the popularity of the EK LHR services I suspect they are denting the fortunes of grandfather airlines there ?