But surely if we are led to believe London is suffering because of lack of slots and interconnectivity would it not be better to sacrifice some of these flights for say 2 direct point to point Chinese or Brazilian flights ?
Airlines are (well should be!) a commercial business, that means they fly to where the money is. This is why they fly to NYC so often, they need to realise as much value from their assets (aircraft). They could fly them to Brazil but unless that makes more than the NYC rotation, commercially it's a bad decision. What many on here advocate is increasing capacity so NYC capacity and profits are maintained and growth into new markets can be funded. Bear in mind these new markets will be
loss making for some time.
One bad year can kill any business.