Well made me book with Germanwings, as im sure it will with many people. So as you guys say, only so long Eithad will be able to put up with it.
With that way of thinking, you will soon be without DUS flights from STN. Germanwings/Lufthansa is not interested in DUS-STN as a route, they are interested in driving Etihad Regional out of business. Once they have achieved that, they will pull out (or prices will go up significantly). Around 2000, Lufthansa had a sizeable presence at STN as part of a (failed) strategy to react to Ryanair and easyjet (flights from FRA, HAM, CGN, MUC, some operated by bmi and flightline). Needless to say, they stopped STN after a rather short while.