The good thing about a Middle East route is that the market for a direct flight definitely exists. A huge number of passengers fly out of Belfast each day, with connections to the East and beyond. In the last number of years this has been on the up, partly boosted by the number of families from India, China, Philippines, and many other countries who have settled down here. Flybe has codeshares with Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, even Finnair if you think of the East Asian routes they operate. BA and Aer Lingus both offer a huge number of connecting options, with One World, Virgin, Royal Brunei, etc. etc. KLM has a great network of different destinations, thanks to Skyteam, and finally you have the droves of passengers who use Dublin each day.
The possible negative is that Dublin is looking into an A380 stand, I can only assume for Emirates.
Could Emirates fill a 400ish seat 777, including all the expensive first class seats every day? who knows. With their A330s on the way out their smallest aircraft is now the 777 'Worldliner' with around 260 seats. This combined with a healthy cargo flow- aerospace, pharmaceuticals etc. should keep them busy. I'm still holding out for the likes of Turkish though.
With all 3 of the big ME carriers on the constant expansion it will be interesting to see who jumps in first.