It has to be a connected critical mass Bagso. The US carriers lack a critical mass as they are competitors in differing alliances, Emirates does not co-operate with Qatar or Etihad in the same way American co-operates with US or BA. That takes you back to lack of dominant based carrier which gives you critical mass.
EY/EK/QR will erode yields unless they grow the market in line with capacity, something EY doesn't care about...... Cathay is linking MAN with the one true "world city" it lacks, that's exceptional even on a p2p basis and great news.