Just a question for fun.

No. 1 for me would be SYD-SFO. 

A direct flight to the sub-continent would be next on my wishlist, e.g. SYD-BOM or SYD-BLR.

I'd love them to reintroduce SYD/SIN/LHR using the 787-9 and also start mending bridges ith BA and CX to allow codeshares back as they were, especially with BA. The QF/EK alliance in my thinking is a nighmare, in particular if you are using RTW's constantly.

I don't believe the QF/EK alliance will outlive the respective CEOs.

It looks more like a marriage of convenience based on personality much like the coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems.

I really do wonder as to the cultural fit of the two organisations.

Like Britain in Europe. Sounds good on paper but errrrr...Really???

lets see ... it is just so frustrating to get to singapore etc from london or vice versa with a QF flight number if on a RTW or Global Explorer. If Emirates joined the RTW fares it would be big help. That's not putting them into the OneWorld Alliance.

EK is too much a prima donna to be part of an institutionalised alliance. Only perhaps an alliance like Star Alliance could accommodate it, having put up with another prima donna aka Singapore Airlines.

But even then EK needs to see its operations under significant pressure before it considers the embrace of a proper alliance - Its prior alliance with Sri Lankan and current one with QF very much shows that it is only keen on a partner who is in a subordinate position.

I've done two RTW trips using oneworld carriers and by not booking through oneworld (ie by booking through a travel agent or web agent) have saved $2-3k each time.

Whilst it's possible that EK-QF won't last past the CEO's, my personal opinion is that it will last at least 10 years.  I think there are enough benefits for both sides to make it worthwhile.

I believe it will last as long as Qantas cannot effectively serve more than one or two European destinations on its own metal.

Think about it. What was the problem with the BA alliance? The fact that QF could only fly into LHR (and earlier FRA) severely limited their one-stop connectivity. Remember, QF's planes cannot access a European hub non-stop from SYD and MEL.

So, to get good one-stop connectivity to multiple destinations in Europe, the allied hub needs to be somewhere in between. Traditionally, QF has used Singapore as its European stopover point, and I found it very convenient. The problem with Singapore is that it's much nearer Australia than it is to Europe. This means that's it's fine to fan flights from Singapore across the various Australian ports, but the flights onwards to Europe are long and therefore while the Australian connectivity is good, the European end is poor.

Hence the loss of routes, cut down to just LHR and FRA, and then just LHR. It's just not effective to try and serve multiple European ports through Singapore all the way from Australia.

Now, the obvious thing to do would be to get a codeshare deal. This is all well and good except for the fact that SIN is effectively a hostile hub as far as non-QF operations are concerned. Before you ask, yes, so are the other big Asian hubs, including HKG which is dominated by CX, which is effectively a competitor as far as Australia-Europe traffic is concerned.

Now, the other option is to have the long leg at the Australian end, and the short leg at the European end. This lends itself well to codesharing out of a hub in the Middle East, and having your trunk QF metal flights stopover there. You fly all the way there from a handful of Australian ports, and then on to your very few self-served European ports; you codeshare the hell out of the allied hub in the Middle East.

See how this works now?

The only real unbalanced thing with the QF-EK deal is the weakness of the Australian end. It would work much more neatly if QF had the stronger presence on the Australia to DXB routes. Alas, EK dominates that side too.

This can change, however. There is the possibility that the very weapon I'm mooting as a game-changer for the Asian network could be an effective tool to allow QF to either consolidate their Europe via DXB network, or diversify and run a few key routes on its own metal and codeshare the hell out of nearside hubs.

The transpacific side of things, however, looks good. All I'll say is that the A380 can't come fast enough to the DFW service - oh, and for the love of God my game-changer needs to run the HNL service.

Yeah I know ... my agent at Traveltoo does mine

some of the highly paid execs at Qantas should hopefully read this! Some great ideas.....

watson374 and moa999 , what does cabotage mean?

We're actually posturing about fifth freedoms, and basically the fifth freedom of the air is the right to fly from your own country to another country, and then on to another country, with full rights to ticket passengers on either leg only as well as through.

A good example of an Asian fifth freedom route is the CX triangle HKG-SIN-BKK-HKG and vv. CX has fifth freedom rights to carry passengers between SIN and BKK.

You can look up 'Freedoms of the air' on Wikipedia.

Watson374 ... as a reminder QF was also (briefly on two occasions) flying into CDG in addition to FRA and LHR and even more briefly into MAN so not correct saying they were restricted to LHR and FRA. However, the point I am making is the arrangement between QF-EK has cut down drastically getting a QF code share if you are on a RTW or Global Explorer because, as you would know, EK is not part of the OneWorld alliance and probably never will be. Passengers are not/cannot keep going through DXB to go to Europe if based out of london for a few weeks and need to do side trips to Europe. Not being able to get QF flight numbers cuts chances of maintaining platimum 1 status as an example because now if you fly BA you do not get full array of points on the QFF program eg: no longer get status credits. QF-EK has not necessarily improved things for many passengers. It is cumbersome to put all the examples into print. With my work as a tennis broadcaster I go to London 4 or 5 times a year and then have to do trips into Europe at different times from London, I have lost out in a big way on getting the full array of QF points with the breakdown in the BA-QF relationship.

I realise that they used to fly into CDG as well. My point is that for them to fly to multiple European ports out of Singapore was inefficient - especially in the A380 era.

I appreciate that it's not ideal. The whole reason why I am so strongly mooting a new era in Qantas's Asian network is because the changes of the last few years have screwed us over. My particular grievance is the loss of the A380 on the SIN routes, and the loss of day services SIN-SYD.

totally agree and how quickly did that idea of another full service airline ex-Asia overseen by QF Group disappear? Its so frustrating the lack of QF flight number ex LHR. I just wonder of the days of the alliances like OneWorld are also numbered as each airline makes individual arrangements with other airlines in the alliance eg: British and Qatar etc OneWorld original slogan of "revolves around you" does not live up.

The lack of QF numbers out of LHR shouldn't be an issue. The real problem is that the criteria to maintain P1 status eliminates many BA and other oneworld airlines flights.

It's not practical for QF to be running an LHR hub no matter how much we'd like that to happen.

Frankly, I think the days of Qantas running all the way to Europe on its own metal are over, and hence I support the trunking model based on A380s to Europe and America, connecting to (and through!) hubs that allow QF to codeshare the hell out of a partner, allowing strong one-stop connectivity.

With the 789, you might be able to return to SFO simply to fight UA, but I would say that is about it on the American side of things. DFW and LAX are the two strong hubs to codeshare out of, and hence the TPac nonstop A380s should go there.