uh, no, do you actually read complete posts before you respond, or are you so wrapped up in your logic that you ignore it? I have cited Moscow several times in fact as well as IST (which is "further" than ATH). There are a grand total of 8 or 9 flights from all Moscow Airports to all London airports per day, exclusively on narrow body aircraft on 3 carriers (not including codeshares). There are 32 flights a day between NYC airports and Los Angeles area airports operated by 6 airlines (not including codeshares), perhaps a dozen of these are widebody aircraft. So we are talking about 5-8 times the capacity on twice as many carriers on a distance 33% greater. You want me to compare SFO to IST or ATH? IST now has 9 flights a day from all London airports this season (including the EZ flight from LTN and the TK from STN to SAW) seasonally 7 or 8 in the winter (and as recently as two years ago there were never more than 5). Two are on widebody a/c and that is an alltime high, there are about 24 flights a day from NYC airports to SFO. That is 3 carriers to IST and 5 to SFO. The distance to IST is 1520 miles, the distance to SFO is about 2400 miles. There are 7 flights a day LON-ATH (including EZ, etc), they are operated by 3 airlines including EZ, hell 4 of the 5 from LHR are operated by BA and the other one is a joint codeshare between Olympic AND Aegean. There are 14 flights a day from NYC to Denver which is the same distance operated by 5 airlines. BTW I should add that when talking about NYC airports I am only speaking about JFK, EWR and LGA, I am not including Newburgh or Islip which while far would be in the same cachement area as Stanstead or Luton if an equivalence was truly made. You want to continue?
Madrid to Moscow? A whopping four flights a day operated by two carriers. you really want that comparison? ATL-LAX also two carriers, but SIXTEEN flights a day, mostly on widebodies, as opposed to the Moscow flights that are narrow bodies.
We can go on with this exercise all day, and I doubt you will find any route pairs to support whatever your thesis is, neither in distance, neither in competitors, neither in capacity.