I know EI is straining at the leash, waiting for the US bilateral to be changed, to allow westward expansion, but I was interested in what Bluehair had to say about eastward expansion.
I would have expected EK to be pretty interest in DXB-DUB, feeding into its expanding Australian network. Is this likely to be a codeshare with EI?
Looking further east, has BKK been mentioned as a possibility; they'd certainly have the advantage of linking with other oneworld airlines (which kind of gets us back to square one!), CX (to HK), AY (HK/SIN) and Qantas. There's actually only 18 miles in the difference between CPT/BKK-DUB, but I wonder if the 332 could cope with the headwinds on the return sector.
Incidentally, Airbus is presumably well aware of EI's route ambitions; I wonder if an attractive deal on future 332 pricing might swing the long expected mid-size order in their favour?