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It's just a hub at an arbitrary (for travelers) location.

People aren't actually going to Dubai. DXB is an extreme of course, but trasnfer passengers represents a huge part of the activity for many hubs: 30% of passengers at LHR are in transfer, and more than 50% at ATL!

Obviously, a vast majority of passengers are just changing planes in the hub to go to other destinations.

I do wonder how many passengers ex-London are travelling to Australia/New Zealand (which are undoable currently without a stopover).

They're well positioned as a hub between Europe/USA and Asia+Australia. Emirates as the stopover is literally in the middle (also counts for their ME airline cousins, as they are all next to each other).

Plus with current flight lengths, you need a stopover somewhere. That is changing, though.. with Perth-London direct opening soon. That's a long time to be on 1 plane though. And it's only a little shorter (1-2h) than going via DXB.

(I'm in Perth)