What I am about to post is completely "out of my arse thinking".
Emirates looks like a gigantic property play. The money isn't in the airline, but converting sand at "cents per acre" into "thousands per square foot" of hotels / retail / office / adventure parks. This process depends upon visitors to continue to support the growth of this process. How they get to Dubai is probably less important than the fact they need to pass through it for this scheme to work.
Ask yourself, who owns the airline, who owns the land, and who would benefit from the conversion process from cents to $$? It is all about the "network effect". The aim appears to be to generate sufficient activity in Dubai to reach a critical mass, so that it becomes valuable because everyone wants to have a holiday or do business in Dubai. Thus creating scarcity from abundance, precisely because they have limited oil & gas reserves.
Just a thought from afar, & I could be well be off the mark...