They are not getting rid of the A330's for a while yet, however the A340's are going rapidly. The A330's are used on short/medium haul middle eastern routes and to open up new European destinations, such as the recent Budapest route and they have also operated to Warsaw recently and much like they did to Newcastle before the 777 upgrade.
Of course it is far easier to get the passengers to come to the airport (in MAN's case) and there is no question that MAN is hugely successful for Emirates. However, the conurbations of the North West and Yorkshire are very large, and it is all well and good saying Emirates could go 4th daily to MAN, however any departure time ex the UK or Dubai other than they current three departures would be pretty rubbish for onward connections. The whole of the EK network is planned on three main departure/arrival waves. Adding another flight ex MAN say at 11:00 or 17:00 or 23:00 would not offer anything realistic. Before someone barks at me about the EK departure times from LHR to DXB... that route is dramatically different and carries a much larger point to point amount of customers that rely on frequency between Dubai and London and not on connections. MAN however is much heavier with onward connections and the point to point traffic is minimal.
The point that I am getting at, is that Emirates could up gauge the 3rd flight to MAN to an A380, which is very realistic. However long term, there are a hell of a lot of aircraft that they will be receiving each year. Increasing from 777 to 380 is a decent percentage increase but in the long term (5-10 years) growth opportunities are limited at the current UK airports Emirates serve, in comparison to their forecasted passenger growth.
Whilst I doubt it will happen in the next few years, I think routes to Dubai from other UK airports, the likes of Leeds, East Mids, Bristol and Edinburgh may seem like a pipe dream but are fairly possible with A330/B777-200 aircraft. Emirates have set their eyes on the passengers that BA/KLM/Lufthansa etc carry from the UK eastbound and win pretty much hands down on every count. They literally have hundreds of aircraft on order, and with a very young fleet, and the new DWC airport... the next 10 years are going to be game changing for the European aviation industry as they really are going for worldwide connections and are going to need as much feed as possible from the west. I have family in Dubai and Abu Dhabi that actually use KLM from LBA as it is often cheaper than Emirates - there is definitely a potential market.
An A330 from LBA-DXB would be ideal, the affluent community around LBA would no doubt help support point to point to Dubai, and also connections to exotic holiday destinations, and the local asian community would clearly support onward connections to Pakistan and India. We just need to sit and wait and hope Tony Hallwood takes the Sheikhs out for a few fancy dinners
